Gen. William Henry Ashley
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| Once Ashley crossed the continental divide, he split his expedition into four parties and sent them in different directions. Ashley led one party and they built a bullboat and covered it with buffalo skins which they used to float down the Green River. Before they split and went in their different directions for trapping and exploring, Ashley gave each team detailed instructions and gave each group information about where and how they would later rendezvous.
It was these instructions for this first rendezvous which was the event that revolutionized the fur trade. The British tried moving their entire operations in and out of the mountains in expensive and time-consuming ventures. Ashley was developing a new method by leaving the men in the mountains year round and supplying them in a predetermined spot in an annual rendezvous. Before they rendezvoused, Ashley and his party had a memorable adventure as they became the first men in recorded history to go down the Green River... a ferocious river with rapids and waterfalls, all while flowing through narrow canyons with steep cliffs bounding the river on each side. The river flows through what is now known as Flaming Gorge and Dinosaur National Monuments. It was in the middle of Red Canyon near the falls that named Ashley Falls before the reservoir covered them. It was near here that Ashley painted his name and date on an overhanging cliff. |
 The Green River Rendezvous was held July 6-9, 2000. Six of the fourteen rendezvous were held on the Green River near the confluence with Horse Creek. The Museum of the Mountain Man is located nearby in Pinedale, Wyoming. |
This map is from the GoSki Utah website. It gives a view of the mountains in northeastern Utah near where Ashley went on his expeditions. These mountains will be the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Note: you are looking southeasterly in this map. I have exchanged e-mails with the web mistress of the Ashley Valley/Vernal, Utah website. She looked at this map and said that the area that Ashley was in was east (to the left) of these mountains and the mountains there are very dense and still not completely explored. She also remarked, "Vernal, which is the county seat of Uintah County, used to be called Ashley Town and we are in Ashley Valley. There are still today various schools and businesses named Ashley." Thanks Lori! |
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1778 William Henry ASHLEY born in Powhatan County, Virginia. ca1808 ASHLEY migrates to Missouri 1812 Ashley is a Brigadier General in the Missouri Militia during the War of 1812 1822 The U.S. government, under pressure from John Jacob Astor, discontinued its policy of only allowing government appointed agents to trade in Indian Country. 3,000 trappers go west between 1822 – 1840. After initially establishing good relations with the Arikaras, a crewman causes a problem during the night and Ashley and crew are attacked by the Arikaras. Ashely sends Jedidiah Smith upriver to seek help from Henry and another message to Ft. Atkinson to let them know what had happened. As a result of this message, Congress and the U.S. Army become involved in what is the first conflict west of the Mississippi involving the U.S. Army with the Native Americans. After the battle, the goods taken from Ashley by the Arikaras are transferred to Henry, who returns to the Ft. Henry outpost, while Ashley returns to St. Louis. 1824 Andrew Henry resigns. This leaves Ashley without his field captain and he must now organize and lead the next expedition into the Rocky Mountains. Because of the battle with the Arikaras the year before, Ashley decides to go overland. 1825 August 7, William ASHLEY reaches the Yellowstone River below Big Horn Mountian. From there, he headed down the river with his rich cargo of furs to St. Louis. 1826 William ASHLEY sends an expedition that reaches the Great Salt Lake. 1826 William ASHLEY retires a wealthy man and sells his profitable fur trading company to three of the Mountain Men and with an amble fortune, retires to the life of a politician. 1831 William ASHLEY elected as Congressman from Missouri 1831-1837 1837 William ASHLEY elected to congress as a Whig for his last term. Known as an able advocate of measures favorable to western development. 1838 William Henry ASHLEY dies and, per his wishes, is buried at the top of an Indian mound overlooking the Missouri River near his home in Cooper County, Missouri. Even in death, his body remained near the river on which he found so many adventures and riches.
Typical Mountain Man Source: Story of the great American West. - Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, c1977. |
Mountain Men of the WestThis was the way to live, free and easy, with time all a man's own and none to say no -A.B. Guthrie, Jr., The Big Sky Ashley & Henry, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass, Jim Beckworth, and the most famous of all, Jedediah Strong Smith were among the 1,000 men that opened the American West. Some were educated and some were illiterate, but all believed it possible to alter one's condition and to be able to rise from poverty to wealth through one's own efforts. Many retired as bankers, merchants, Indian Agents or great wilderness guides. The life was a harsh one living a mostly solitary life in the wilderness with one's own wits and ingenuity providing the means to survive and prosper. They either lived alone, in small groups or among the local Indians. Many of the mountain men learned the ways of the Indians and sometimes purchased Indian wives to assist them in their endeavors and to provide companionship. In the Story of the Great American West, the diet of the mountain men is described as, "Even in his attitude toward food the mountain man was excessive. Buffalo provided him with the dishes he loved most; given his preference, he would rarely dine on anything else and sometimes ate up to eight pounds a day. A wilderness banquet might begin with a soup made from buffalo blood and bone marrow, followed by a main course of broiled buffalo ribs and raw buffalo liver. "If a man could always live on such 'didins'," rhapsodized one trapper, "he would never die"". To most, the life sounds romantic and one of adventure and freedom. A writer who had lived among the mountain men, Thomas J. Farnharm, offered a more realistic view as he wrote, "Habitual watchfulness destroys every frivolity of mind and action... They ride and walk like men whose breasts have so long been exposed to the bullet and the arrow, that fear finds within them no resting place". These men wore buckskins and furs for warmth. In learning the ways of the Indian, they learned to understand nature and their environment better. Author Robert Utley in an interview with Sierra Adare says, "White traders could not have dropped into the Indian world without upsetting the balance. In total ignorance, Thomas Jefferson ordered Lewis & Clark to make peace with all peoples and among all Indian tribes. Misperceptions abounded on both sides as a result of simplistic and unrealistic objectives for dealing with Indians. The irony here is that after two crossings of the continent, Colter and the other mountain men did not have a clue about what a mess they were making for those who came later". There is no doubt that the courage and the exploits of the mountain men opened the west for further settlement by the newly formed United States. The U.S. was beginnings its period of its Manifest Destiny in which everyone considered it their destiny to expand westward from ocean to ocean. Some have called the period from the early 1820's through 1850 as the 'Time of Unboundlessness' in which it seemed that all confinements that had been on man before were suddenly no longer present. The mountain men were a loosely formed group of individuals. The most famous Jedediah Smith was known for his butcher knife in his belt and the Bible in his bedroll. Much of his geographical knowledge was recorded and published. He was also one of the first to reach the Pacific on his expeditions. The mountain men were legends in their own time and the legends continue to this day.
Ashley & Mountain Men Resources on the Web Museum of Westward Expansion Tour by National Park Service Images of the Fur Trade Industry William Ashley's Rocky Mountain Papers Painter Alfred Miller's Images of the Mountain Men Requirements for becoming a Modern Mountain Man More William Ashley Links (currently being added)
Movies set in the Period The Big Sky (1952) with Kirk Douglas as a trapper on a keelboat is set during this period as the movie is about the trappers going up the Missouri. Lost in the Wilderness with Richard Harris is about the mountain man Hugh Glass, who after being attacked by a grisly bear, was sewn up and then left to heal on his own or die in the wilderness showing the harsh realities of survival for the mountain man/trapper.
Books about the Period and Ashley Story of the Great American West. - Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, c1977 A Majority of Scoundrels, an informal history of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, "the greatest name in the mountains." by Don Berry William H. Ashley : Enterprise and Politics in the Trans-Mississippi West by Richard M. Clokey The Explorations of William H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith, 1822-1829 by Harrison Clifford Dale The Letters from Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West
This Illustration of Rendezvous at Pierre's Hole, west of the Teton Range in 1832, is in the Library of Congress. William Henry Ashley started the Rendezvous in 1825 and it continued through 1840.
Source: Story of the great American West. - Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, c1977. In the 1825 business papers, it shows that Ashley's income for the Rendezvouz was $31,500 and his expenses were $16,000, giving him a profit of $15,500 for the two week event. What would $15,500 be in 1999 dollars???? |
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