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Lucien
Fontenelle
Lucien Fontenelle
was a mountain man’s mountain man. He
was in the thick of the fur trade on the
Upper Missouri River
and
Northern Rockies
from at least1816 up until his death in 1839.
He was an experienced trapper, respected leader and successful
businessman who seemed capable of turning any situation to advantage and
profit. He was comfortable and
competent in all aspects of the trade.
In the years leading up to his death he had become a heavy drinking
alcoholic, seemingly losing his focus and competitive edge in the
increasingly cutthroat environment of the fur trade in the late 1830’s.
Lucien Fontenelle
was born
October 9, 1800
, on his family’s plantation south of
New Orleans where he spent his early years. While
attending school in New Orleans, a hurricane struck the area of the family plantation, drowning his
parents. After this Lucien and
his sister remained in the care of an Aunt in
New Orleans. Fontenelle’s relation with
the Aunt was difficult (Lucien was apparently one of those children who
cannot live within any kind of bounds), and he is reported to have left
her care abruptly (run away?), possibly in 1816, for St. Louis.
Pierre Chouteau,
Jr. was an early friend of Fontenelle in
New Orleans. Although there is no record,
it is possible that Fontenelle was employed by Choteau in
St. Louis
between 1816 and 1819. By 1819
Fontenelle is known to have entered the fur trade and was employed by the
Missouri Fur Company, where he worked out of
Fort
Lisa
in the Lower Missouri River Country. On
August 12, 1820, Manuel Lisa, the driving force behind the
Missouri Fur Company died.
Joshua Pilcher
succeeded Lisa in managing the Missouri Fur Company.
Under Pilcher’s leadership the company expanded operations into
the Upper Missouri River Country in 1821, with field parties headed by
Michael Immel and Robert Jones, two of the most capable traders on the
river at that time. Initial
successes by Immel and Jones led the company to ready an outfit to return
to the region in 1822.
Fontenelle was
placed in charge of hiring men and equipping the 1822 outfit.
Finding experienced men may have been difficult that year.
William Ashley and Andrew Henry were
outfitting for the Upper Missouri
at this same time and were hiring men at very attractive wages.
Fontenelle was eventually successful in obtaining the men and
supplies he needed and a company boat was sent up river on May 13, 1822
with Louis Bompart in charge.
Fontenelle
probably remained behind in
St. Louis. He needed to attend to
additional supplies and goods that had not arrived prior to the departure
of the boat. Also Andrew
Dripps and William Vanderburgh were coming down river with the previous
year’s fur harvest, which also required his attention to dispose.
After seeing to these matters, he probably headed upriver to
Council Bluffs
and the
Lower Missouri
trade.
At about this
time the American Fur Company was again attempting to extend it’s reach
into the Missouri River Country, and Ramsey
Crooks made overtures to Joshua Pilcher.
Because of the recent successes that the Missouri Fur Company had
had, Pilcher and his partners felt that they could withstand the
competition. Crooks’ offers
were rejected.
1823 was a
difficult year for trader/trappers in the mountains.
As Ashley’s brigade was attempting to pass the Arikara Indian
villages on May 31, 1823, the brigade was attacked with a loss of fifteen
men killed and nine wounded. The
party fell back down river, and after about nine weeks a punitive military
expedition under Colonel Leavenworth was ready to punish the Indians.
Leavenworth
’s forces of 239 regulars and artillery were strengthened by about
eighty of Ashely and Henry’s men, forty of Pilcher’s men, and about
750 Sioux warriors out for coup and plunder.
By most measures the attack was a failure. The Sioux warriors,
unused to siege warfare, soon lost patience and after plundering the
Arikara gardens and fields, left the scene.
Eventually the Arikara villages were destroyed, but not until after
the Arikaras had managed to evacuate nearly the entire population.
This resulted in the dispersal of thousands of angry Arikara
warriors determined to gain vengeance against any and all whites.
It is not known if Fontenelle participated with the punitive force
against the Arikara.
As the combined
force was preparing to attack the Arikara villages, Pilcher received word
that Michael Immel and Robert Jones had been attacked by Blackfeet near
Pryor’s Fork of the
Yellowstone
River
(near present day
Billings
,
Montana
). The attack took place on
May 31, 1823
, and both Immel and Jones, top traders, had been killed as well as five
other men. All of the horses,
supplies, equipment, traps and furs were lost to the Blackfeet.
The loss represented a major disaster for the Missouri Fur Company.
After the
abortive attack on the Arikara village, Pilcher outfitted a small party to
travel overland by horse with a pack-train to trade with the Crow Indians
in the
Wind River
region in competition with a party sent out by Ashley under Jedediah
Smith. Fontenelle did not
ride out with the brigade outfitted by Pilcher and by August of 1823
Fontenelle was back at
Fort
Lisa
. Shortly afterward Fontenelle moved upriver to
Bellevue
where the company had established a new post where he conducted trade with
nearby tribes.
While at
Bellevue, Fontenelle married an
Omaha
woman ala facon du pais sometime in 1824
and together they had four sons and a daughter.
Eventually this relation would be formalized, with a church
ceremony performed by Father DeSmet.
In the spring of
1824 Thomas Fitzpatrick, one of Ashely’s men, returned from the
mountains with news of rich beaver country in the
Green River
area. Fitzpatrick had endured
incredible hardships in making the journey, and had cached his furs
enroute. Having lost all of
his equipment and horses, he arrived at
Bellevue
destitute and starving. Fontenelle
re-equipped Fitzpatrick. Probably
in gratitude for the kindness shown by Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick sold him
the fur packs that had been cached, rather than to his own company.
During 1825,
Fontenelle continued operating as a trader at
Bellevue. By 1826, the Missouri Fur
Company had essentially become a defunct organization.
Also in 1826, John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company began to
become a major presence in the fur trade along the Missouri River. The American Fur Company
formed an alliance with Pratte & Company, and by 1827 had merged with
the Columbia Fur Company which was renamed the Upper Missouri Outfit.
Pilcher and his partners also forged an agreement with the American
Fur Company. In September
1827, a brigade including Fontenelle, Pilcher, Drips, Vanderburgh and
Charles Bent with 45 men and one hundred horses headed for the mountains
with goods purchased from the American Fur Company.
The intention was to compete directly with Smith,
Jackson & Sublette for furs in the Upper Missouri River Region.
The course
followed by the brigade was along the
Platte
and then
Sweetwater
Rivers, over
South Pass
and then down into the
Green
River Basin. Winter struck early, and
deep snows slowed their progress. As
the brigade neared
South Pass, most of their horses were stolen by Crow Indians.
Lacking transportation, the goods and supplies were cached, while
the men continued on foot to the
Green River
, where they wintered. In the
spring of 1828, a party was sent back with horses obtained in trade from
Snake (Shoshone) Indians to recover the cached goods.
Water had seeped into the caches, and most of the goods had been
spoiled. This discovery
demoralized the men, some of whom deserted to Smith, Jackson &
Sublette, while others returned to
St. Louis. Fontenelle and his partners
remained in the
Green
River Basin
trapping beaver until time for the Rendezvous of 1828.
Between their own
trapping efforts and trading at rendezvous, the partners obtained 16-18
packs of beaver. The
partnership broke up at the end of rendezvous.
Pilcher set off for the Columbia River Country, Vanderburgh joined
the American Fur Company, Charles Bent returned to
St. Louis
where he entered the
Santa Fe
trade and eventually founded Bent's Fort, and
Fontenelle and Drips became partners.
Fontenelle and Drips were unable to obtain sufficient credit and lacked
adequate capital of their own to equip an independent outfit, and so they
became affiliated with the American Fur Company in late 1828, or early
1829 in a complex business relation that lasted untill the 1834
Rendezvous. Fontenelle and
Drips provided leadership and experience to American Fur Company trapping
brigades while simultaneously maintaining independent accounts, and credit
and even had trappers directly engaged to them.
This arrangement was exceedingly profitable for Fontenelle and
Drips. By June of 1832, the
partners had positive balance
of $21,841.74 with the Western Department of the American Fur Company.
Although the arrangement provided the Western Department with
experienced leaders and field managers, the company found itself operating
in opposition with it self.
In 1829
Fontenelle returned to
Bellevue, where he reorganized and upgraded the post.
The following spring, Fontenelle took charge of the supply train
from
St. Louis
to the 1830 Rendezvous, accompanied by
Drips and Joseph Robidoux. Warren
Ferris was with this brigade and he writes, “Fontenelle, a veteran
leader in the mountain service, who now assumed the direction of affairs,
and in all things showed himself to be an experienced, able and efficient
commander.”
The pack train
reached the
Sweetwater
River
on June 13th. Between
this date and August 16, Fontenelle sent out various parties of men to
search for free trappers. On
August 16th the furs and remaining goods were cached, and the
brigade split into three parties, headed by Fontenelle, Dripps and
Robidoux. Each party had an
assigned area to trap, Fontenelle’s being southward on the
Green River
and it’s tributaries. During
the winter of 1830-1831 both Fontenelle and Drips went into winter
encampment in Cache Valley, along with a party of trappers from the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company (the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was the successor
company to Smith, Jackson and Sublette), including two of it’s partners,
Henry Fraeb and Jean Bapitiste Gervais.
The winter was extremely severe, and the trappers suffered both
from the weather and from hostile encounters with both Shoshone and
Blackfoot Indians.
In April,
Fontenelle and his men moved down the
Portneuf
River
to a location where a
Hudson
’s Bay Company brigade under the leadership of John Work was encamped.
The weather turned bad, and for three days Fontenelle’s men were
forced to remain encamped with the HBC men.
At one time during this period, Fontenelle was threatened by an HBC
man with a gun for supposedly inducing one of the HBC men to defect to
Fontenelle’s brigade.
Fontenelle’s
brigade continued trapping until
June 19, 1831
, when he and Andrew Drips left for
St. Louis
with the winters accumulation of furs.
Drips, with a few supplies, returned to
Cache
Valley
in the fall where he rejoined Vanderburgh.
Fontenelle
remained behind in
St. Louis, making preparations for the 1832 Rendezvous.
This year the American Fur Company would ship goods and supplies
most of the way up the
Missouri River
on the steamboat “Yellow Stone” (see
also Steamboats).
Fontenelle with about twenty men and horses arrived overland at
Fort
Tecumseh
on
May 22, 1832, however the steamship didn’t arrive until May 31st.
On June 6, Fontenelle left with a supply train of approximately 40
men and over one hundred horses for rendezvous.
Because of the ten-day delay at
Fort Tecumseh, Fontenelle and the pack train would miss the Rendezvous of 1832 and the
subsequent “Battle of Pierre’s Hole”.
Although delays caused by the steamboats cost the American Fur
Company the commerce of the 1832 Rendezvous, the use of steamships would
revolutionize the economics and practices of the fur trade (see Steamboats)
until the coming of the railroads.
Vanderburgh and Drips were frantic while waiting for their supplies at the
1832 Rendezvous-their competitors, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company had
rendezvoused, re-supplied and packed out for the fall hunt.
Vanderburgh and Drips set off to search for Fontenelle who they
found nearby in the valley of the
Green River
. Encamped nearby was Captain
B.L.E. Bonneville and his brigade. Bonneville
had taken a leave of absence from the military to trap/explore in the
Rocky Mountains
. Hastily re-supplying,
Vanderburgh and Drips set off in pursuit of Thomas Fitzpatrick and Jim
Bridger of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.
The American Fur Company men had two objectives in following the RMFC
men: to learn the locations of
the best beaver country remaining in the
Northern Rockies
, and to spoil the hunt for the RMFC.
In the high stakes game of “Hide and Seek” that followed
Vanderburgh would lose his life when his party was ambushed by Blackfoot
Indians. (Warren
Ferris gives an eye-witness account of the ambush and death of Vanderburgh)
Fontennelle,
meanwhile, remained in the vicinity of the
Green River
, purchasing or trading for any furs that were still available in the
area. He then returned to
Fort
Union, where he and Kenneth McKenzie proceeded from
Fort
Union to
Fort Tecumseh, arriving on September 30, 1832. By December, Fontenelle was
back in
Bellevue.
May 18, 1833
Fontenelle left Bellevue
for
Fort
Pierre, arriving near the end of May. On
June 8, Fontenelle lead a pack train composed of about 60 men and 185
horses bound for the 1833 Rendezvous on
the
Green River
. Fontenelle again arrived
late, and as a result the company achieved only nominal success in trading
at rendezvous. Etienne Provost
would return east with the returns and Fontenelle and Drips would each
lead trapping brigades into the mountains.
1834 was a year
of major realignments in the western fur trade.
William Sublette and Robert Campbell would sell out their fur
trading company, The St. Louis Fur Company to the Western Department of
the American Fur Company. Sublette
and Campbell had set up this company especially to annoy the American Fur
Company, and perhaps to force a buyout.
As part of the buyout agreement, Sublette and Campbell assured the
American Fur Company that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and Christy would
soon cease to exist. (The
Rocky Mountain Fur Company and Christy was deeply indebted to Sublette and
Campbell, who had been providing goods and supplies to it at rendezvous.)
At this same time John Jacob Astor, owner of the American Fur
Company, had determined to exit the fur trade.
The Western Department was sold to Pratte and Choteau and was
renamed Pratte, Choteau and Company. However,
this company and it’s successor companies continued to be referred to as
the American Fur Company.
At the 1834
Rendezvous, Fontenelle and Drips learned that Choteau and the Western
Department would no longer continue to supply them.
Four supply trains went to the mountains that year, one lead by
Michael S Cerre with supplies for Bonneville, at a location on the Bear
River, one lead by Etienne Provost for the American Fur Company, one
headed by William Sublette and Robert Campbell and one headed by Nathaniel
Wyeth. After the 1833
Rendezvous, Wyeth had entered into a secret agreement with the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company and Christy to provide goods and supplies at far
lower costs than Sublette and Campbell.
Sublette and Campbell became aware of the agreement when a letter
addressed to Milton Sublette was
mistakenly delivered to William Sublette (
Milton
’s brother). Sublette &
Campbell and Wyeth’s trains were in a race to supply the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company. Sublette and
Campbell, because of their long experience in managing pack trains, easily
beat Wyeth’s train. By the
time Wyeth arrived, Sublette and Campbell had called in debts owed them by
the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and forced the company into liquidation.
Thomas Fitzpatrick, Milton
Sublette, and Jim Bridger formed a new partnership out of what remained of
the Rocky Mountain Fur Company called Fitzpatrick, Sublette and Bridger
Company. This company lasted
only a few days before before Fontenelle and Drips were brought in as
partners and a yet another new company called Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick and
Company was formed. The main
problem faced by the new company was they were dependent on the American
Fur Company for supplies, but the American Fur Company had previously
agreed with Sublette and Campbell that they would stay out of the
Northern Rocky Mountains
through 1835. In
a complicated three-way deal, an agreement was made whereby
Sublette-Campbell would sell
Fort William to Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick and Company with a
percentage of the operations going to Sublette-Campbell.
The American Fur Company would send a supply train to the
mountains, and Sublette-Campbell would cease sending supply trains to the
mountains. After all the dust
had settled, Drips and Bridger lead fur trapping brigades out for
the fall hunt, while Fontenelle returned east to attend to his affairs and
to make supply arrangements for the new company for 1835.
In the Spring of
1835 Sublette and Campbell arranged to sell their interests in
Fort William
to Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick and Company and on April 9th both
Campbell and Fitzpatrick departed for the fort.
Campbell’s purpose was to collect and return with the furs and robes that had
been accumulated at the fort over the winter.
Later, Fontenelle lead the supply train to the mountains consisting
of 50-60 men, six wagons and 200 or so pack animals.
This caravan would be accompanied by two missionaries, Dr. Marcus
Whitman and Samuel Parker who were assessing the prospects for
establishing missions amongst the Indians in the west.
Cholera broke out amongst caravan personal as it left
Bellevue, the affected men including both Fontenelle and Dr. Whitman.
Even though he was ill himself, Dr. Whitman attended to the
stricken men, Without Whitman’s aid, the progress of the supply train
might have been different. As
it was by the time the supply train had reached Fort William, Fontenelle was too weak to continue and remained behind at the fort
while Fitzpatrick took the caravan on to rendezvous.
After rendezvous, Fitzpatrick returned by way of
Fort
William
with the furs, and Fontenelle, now recovered, took them on from there back
to
Bellevue.
Fontenelle had
long had a drinking problem and by 1835 it was seriously affecting his
business and partners. Large
debts were being run up with his partners and suppliers with little
prospect for settlement. Driven
by these debts, Fontenelle returned to
New Orleans
in early 1836 to sue for compensation for property that had been owned by
his parents, and perhaps to borrow money from his sister.
The outcome of his trip to
New Orleans
is not known.
Fitzpatrick,
accompanied by Milton Sublette, lead the
supply train to the mountains in 1836.
Whether Fontenelle accompanied the supply train is not known,
however he was at the 1836 Green River
Rendezvous with Andrew Drips that summer.
Joshua Pilcher of Pratte, Choteau and Company attended this years
rendezvous. Pilcher was
seeking to buy
Fort William
for Pratte, Choteau and Company (formerly the Western Department of the
American Fur Company). Before rendezvous broke up he was
successful in buying all of the remaining assets of Fontenelle,
Fitzpatrick and Company, including the fort.
After rendezvous, Fontenelle again led a fur trapping brigade,
including Kit Carson, northward to trap the Yellowstone, Otter, and
Muscle
Shell Rivers. The brigade encamped for the
winter in the
Powder
River basin
.
The men broke
camp in April 1837 and Fontenelle returned to
Fort
William
where he acted as factor until the arrival of the supply train.
Fontenelle then accompanied the train to rendezvous.
Also accompanying this years supply train was Sir William Drummond
Stewart and Alfred Jacob Miller.
In his journal Alfred Jacob Miller records the following regarding
Fontenelle “he distinguished himself for speed of foot in running from a
grizzly bear, he having no gun with him at the time.”
After rendezvous Fontenelle returned to
Fort William. In the spring of 1838
Fontenelle was still factor at Fort
William. Sometime in late 1838 or
early 1839 he returned to
Bellevue. There at the age of 39
Lucien Fontenelle died.
For more
information about Lucien Fontenelle see also:
The
Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, Volume V; edited by
LeRoy R Hafen, published by The Arthur H Clark Company, Glendale,
California, 1966.
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