Fort McKenzie:

Early in the summer of 1832 Kenneth McKenzie sent David Mitchell, upriver to continue trade with the Blackfoot Indians.  On the upstream trip, a storm struck while the brigade was in the vicinity of the Musselshell River, sinking the keelboat with $30,000 worth of trade goods and a loss of two men drowned.  Mitchell returned to Fort Union where he obtained a new boat and outfit and was on his way up-river again in June. 

Finding that Fort Piegan had been destroyed, Mitchell continued six miles further up the Missouri River where he established a new post named Fort McKenzie in honor of Kenneth McKenzie.  Work on the structure was conducted in an atmosphere of absolute fear and frenzy as thousands of suspicious and hostile Blackfoot Indians gathered to watch the work.  Peace held during the construction because although unfriendly, the Blackfeet were still anxious to obtain trade goods.  Once the stockade was completed, trade commenced, even though work still continued on the interior structures.  The structure as completed was 140 feet square with bastions at its diagonal corners.  For eleven years Fort McKenzie served successfully as post through which access and control of the Blackfoot fur trade was maintained by the American Fur Company.  The above photo is of the site of Fort McKenzie.  The fort was located behind the trees in the foreground.  The photo also shows the high bluffs across the river from which disgruntled Indians would fire down into the fort.

The Blackfoot were enthusiastic about the trade and their own trading post, and returns for the winter of 1832-33 exceeded those of the previous year at Fort Piegan.  In the spring of 1833 Mitchell returned down river to Fort Union with a keelboat loaded with pelts and robes, meanwhile leaving twenty-seven whites, along with their Indian women and children behind at Fort McKenzie.   

While taking on a new outfit at Fort Union that spring, Mitchell met two relatively new traders, Alexander Culbertson and Alexander Harvey, who would be returning upriver with him to Fort McKenzie.  Prince Maximilian of Wied-New Wied, a naturalist-scientist, and Karl Bodmer, an artist were also at Fort Union.  They too would accompany Mitchell back up river to Fort McKenzie.  While at Fort McKenzie, Bodmer made several drawings of the fort. 

Maximilian described the fort as follows:  “A quadrangle whose sides are 45 paces and 47 paces.  Two blockhouses on opposite corners each with some piece of cannon.  Dwellings are one story, most without floors, generally with an open fireplace and a chimney, wooden, door, and small window with parchment instead of glass.  A very flat roof covered with green sod, where inhabitants post themselves when in case of being attacked they have to fire over the high pickets which make the back wall of the dwellings.  When trading the inner gate is closed.  The entrance to the Indian store between the gates is then free.  Guards are then posted at the store.  The fort’s gate is 120 paces from the river” (Reference)

Theft of the post’s livestock by Indians was a continual difficulty at the fort.  The problem was partially solved with by pasturing the animals on an island (Horse Island) in the Missouri River, or by confining the animals within the Fort’s stockades at night. 

Apparently there were plans in place by the time Maximilian and Bodmer arrived at Fort McKenzie, to replace the structure to a more favorable location.  Foundations had been prepared, and a work party sent out.  For unknown reasons work on the new site was discontinued.   The move may have been considered because the interior of Fort McKenzie’s stockade was vulnerable to gunfire from atop the high bluffs on the opposite side of the river.

The Blackfoot Indians were very dangerous customers, and in spite of having the fort for protection, the post employees lived in an extremely hazardous environment.  With the exception of the Gros Ventre, the Blackfoot existed on a war-time basis with all of their neighbors, and got along only slightly better within the different divisions of the Blackfoot nation.  Anytime there were large numbers of Blackfeet at the fort, tensions ran high, and violence was a certainty, either white/Indian, or Indian/Indian.  

Attack of the Assiniboine.  White traders generally chose not to become involved in Indian wars and battles preferring to maintain neutrality rather than risk offending or alienating a tribe (of potential customers).  Early one morning on August 28, 1833 a party of about 600 Assiniboine warriors attacked an encampment of about thirty Piegan lodges situated outside the palisades at Fort McKenzie.  When the attack began, there was initially an assumption by the traders that the Blackfeet were attacking the fort, but it quickly became clear that this was an Indian battle.  Although fur companies generally tried to remain neutral in Indian/Indian conflicts, personnel from Fort McKenzie on this occasion did provide assistance to the Blackfeet because the Assiniboine were far out of their country, and never traded at Fort McKenzie (although they did trade at the company’s Fort Union post).  The Blackfeet were sheltered within the fort, given supplies of powder and ball, and the wounded were given aid.  A number of men and engages, including Culbertson, Mitchell, Harvey and even Maximilian took up arms along side the Blackfeet against the Assiniboine.  Below is a drawing by Karl Bodmer of the early morning assault by the Assiniboine. 

Trade at Fort McKenzie was good through the winter of 1833-34.  Mitchell proceeded down river to FortUnion with a keelboat and mackinaws containing the returns for the season.  Mitchell then continued on downriver to St. Louis where he remained until 1836.  Alexander Culbertson, with only a single season experience, was left in charge of Fort McKenzie.  Mitchell must have alerted Culbertson that this was a probability before he left because Culbertson wrote a letter to Kenneth McKenzie stating that he didn’t consider himself competent to assume command of this hazardous post.  McKenzie sent James Kipp to the post to support Culbertson.  Kipp remained on and off at the post until at least 1835, and was probably gone by the spring of 1836. 

Prior to Kipp’s arrival at the post in the spring of 1834, a war party of Crow Indians arrived, determined to destroy the fort and drive off the white traders.  In part the Crows objected to Fort McKenzie because the post was directly providing their enemies, the Blackfeet, with arms and ammunition.  Although open warfare never took place between the traders and Crows, the fort existed in a state of siege for ten days.  During this period, Alexander Harvey (whose personal motto seemed to be that there was no problem or situation that couldn’t be resolved through the application of raw violence) proposed firing on the Crow camp with the fort’s cannon.  When Culbertson denied Harvey this solution, Harvey began plotting to steal a boat and desert the post with several other men.  Faced with a possible mutiny amongst his own men, Culbertson was forced to act: he issued an ultimatum to the Crows that they be gone by noon the following day.  When at noon the following day, the Crows were still encamped in front of the fort Culbertson ordered that a cannon ball be shot into the center of the Crow camp.  The Indians immediately began to raise camp and were gone shortly thereafter.  Later some of the more disgruntled Crow warriors crossed the river and ascended the high bluffs south of the fort and fired down into the stockade, but without effect.  

In May of 1835 Culbertson received a letter from Fort Union recommending that he relocate Fort McKenzie, possibly to the site occupied by the now abandoned Fort Piegan at the mouth of the Marias River.  Although Culbertson never acted on the recommendation, he did begin a process of extensively remodeling and upgrading the fort which lasted for several years.

In 1836 Culbertson took the returns downriver to Fort Union.  Kenneth McKenzie had recently been removed as bourgeois at Fort Union as a result of his distillery operations and the political embarrassment that it caused the Western Department (See Evading Liquor Laws).  After some discussions with Honore Picotte, Culbertson was made the factor at Fort Union where he remained through the winter of 1836-1837 before returning to Fort McKenzie.  Alexander Harvey was apparently in charge of Fort McKenzie for this brief time. 

In the spring of 1837 Alexander Harvey took the returns downriver from Fort McKenzie to Fort Union, where he waited for the arrival of the steamship St. Peter, and the trade goods it was bringing upriver.  When the steamship arrived, it was found that smallpox had infected both crew and passengers of the ship.  (See S.S. St. Peter & the 1837 Smallpox Epidemic for a more complete description of the epidemic)  Hoping to avoid the disease, Harvey loaded his keelboat and pulled out of Fort Union as soon as possible.  However, only three days after leaving Fort Union, smallpox broke out among three members of his crew.  

Harvey knew that the Indian populations would be devastated if exposed to the disease.  On arriving at the confluence of the Judith and Missouri Rivers, Harvey put the keelboat and crew into isolation.  From this location Harvey sent word up to Culbertson at Fort McKenzie advising him of the situation and seeking guidance.  Supposedly the Blackfeet were advised of the presence of the disease.  The Indians however, either couldn’t believe the devastating effects the disease would have on them, or thought that this was some sort of trick on the part of the white traders to deny them access to trade goods and alcohol.  They insisted that the keelboat be brought up to the fort and Harvey proceeded upriver. 

With the arrival of the keelboat, all of the fort personnel and Indians waiting to trade were exposed to the virus.  With an incubation period of 12 to 14 days, trade had been concluded, and most of the Indians dispersed to their camps before any symptoms of the disease began to appear.  Most of the inhabitants of the fort were affected to some degree by the disease, with the Indian families of the white traders suffering terribly, many of whom also died.  So few people in the fort were healthy at the height of the epidemic, that the bodies of those who died were simply dragged to the river and dumped. 

Perhaps as many as one-half to two-thirds of the Blackfoot people died during the smallpox epidemic of 1837.  Everyone involved in the fur and robe trade was certain that trade would suffer in the following years.  However, at Fort McKenzie in 1838, 10,000 robes were taken in, more than in the previous season.  Some speculated that many of these robes belonged to the dead, and that there would be a renewed outbreak of the disease in the white settlements when the robes arrived there.  However, these concerns didn't stop the company from shipping the robes downriver.  It was unknown until modern times that without special environmental conditions the smallpox virus is generally only viable outside its host for about six hours.  There would be no outbreaks of the disease in St. Louis or any of the other robe handling centers that year. 

Following the decimation of the Blackfoot population general living conditions within the fort were less threatening.  Relocating the post to another site was never considered again, and Culbertson increased his efforts to remodel the fort and improve living conditions for its inmates.  Improvements included cabins with adobe fireplaces, an icehouse, a meat house, kitchen, barn and corral. 

Harvey was left in charge of Fort McKenzie again in the winter of 1839-1840.  By this time Harvey was much feared and hated by many within the company because of his usual method of solving personal issues, that is through the use of violence.  Chouteau sent up discharge papers for Harvey which arrived shortly before Christmas.  Harvey immediately left on foot with a dog for St. Louis and after meeting with Chouteau in the spring of 1840 was reinstated in his position at Fort McKenzie.  (Larpenteur’s account of this incident and its aftermath can be read here.)

For the next several years Culbertson split his time between Fort McKenzie and Fort Union.  Generally at those times that Culbertson was absent, Harvey assumed management of Fort McKenzie. 

In 1842 an outfit known as the Fox-Livingston and Company (later known as the Union Fur Company) established a series of posts in opposition to the Pierre Choteau and Co. (successor to the Western Department).  One of these posts named Fort Cotton after one of the company’s partners, was located about ten miles upriver from Fort McKenzie.  In 1843 this company built a smaller post just upriver from Fort McKenzie and was called Fort Fox-Livingston.  Neither of these posts were occupied for more than a year or so before the opposition company sold out to Pierre Choteau. 

In 1843 Culbertson was reassigned to Fort Laramie, to straighten out business there which had been a disaster for the preceding two seasons.  At the same time Francis A Chardon was reassigned from Fort Clark to Fort McKenzie as bourgeois.  During the winter of 1843-44 the fort was suddenly abandoned as a result of an outrage perpetrated by Chardon against the Blackfoot Indians.   The incident started when a Blackfoot warrior of the Blood band named “Big Snake” decided to visit the fort.  On his arrival, instead of the warm welcome he expected, he found the fort gates shut in his face.  Being insulted, he killed thirteen head of cattle belonging to the fort.  This brought out the fort personnel to protect the cattle and drive off Big Snake.  In the ensuing melee Big Snake killed a black slave named Reese, scalped the man and waved the souvenir in derision towards the Americans.  The slave belonged to Chardon, and Chardon determined to have his revenge against the next band of Blackfeet to show up at the fort (Barbour, 2001).  Chardon, joined by Jacob Berger and Alexander Harvey were co-plotters.  Harvey had long ago established a reputation for his savageness and fearlessness.  It was then a practice at the fort to only allow a limited number of Indians into the fort at any one time to conduct trade (Even though the Indians were supposedly friendly, they were still “Blackfeet.”)  Others wishing to trade had to wait outside the gates until the first group had finished before being allowed in.  Charles Larpenteur (Forty Years A Fur Trader) describes the plot was as follows: Three head chiefs were to be invited inside the fort to trade.  In the meantime, a small cannon located in a bastion commanding the gate where the remaining Indians would bunch up waiting to be admitted, would be loaded with balls.  At a signal the three chiefs were to be slaughtered and those at the gate cut down by cannon fire.  Somehow the plot was made known before all was in readiness and the Indian chiefs were able to escape over the picket wall, while those before the gate scattered.  Still three before the gate were killed and two injured by the cannon, and one of the chiefs was shot by Chardon.  Other estimates have placed the number of killed and wounded well in excess of a dozen (Barbour, 2001).  Harvey is reported to have finished off the wounded Indians with his knife, to have scalped all of those who had been left behind and then to have licked the blood off of his blade when finished.  After this treacherous incident, the men in the fort were too frightened to remain in the face of overwhelming Blackfoot hostility and the post was burned to the ground and abandoned. 

In order not to entirely abandon the Blackfoot trade, the company tasked Francis Chardon with building another post at a downriver location near the mouth of the Judith River the following year.  During its brief existence this post was known as Fort Chardon . 

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