Reading another Bridger bio. This is the take from the first rondy held in 1825 on Henry’s Fork, near present day McKinnon Wyoming. “They brought their pelts to the scales, and it was an enormous haul. Weber’s party, which included Bridger, had the largest taking—3,100 pounds of beaver fur. Jedediah Smith and his six men brought in 668 pounds. Zacharias Ham’s party had 461 pounds. Caleb Greenwood’s party brought in 202 pounds.34 When Ashley’s clerk finished tabulating the returns at rendezvous and the furs that had already been cached, he counted 8,829 pounds of beaver skins, worth nearly $50,000 in St. Louis.35 The wealthy in St. Louis built their expensive mansions for a fraction of that amount.” Morgan, [/i]West of William Ashley[i] 126.

Dried pelts weigh in a ruff ave. of around 2lbs. give or take. (Let the arguing begin)

You do the math, lot of beaver got bought. Enjoy or gth.

Those beaver averaged over 6.00 a pound .. pretty good when you think about what a dollar could buy in that time span!!

If you take it at face value for a 2 lb average, the $12 beaver then would equate to a $300 beaver in 2021.

Wow

Amazing numbers for sure.

I just bet a good pair of hip boots or waders would have been worth their weight in beaver pelts or beads in the old days.
There is one thing I have often thought about and that is how many of those beaver were actually shot on a sunny day or was there laws against it?

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/6181182/all/Mountain_Men_beaver_methods

There was no such thing as game laws in that time, in that country.

pretty cool stuff right there

I would imagine they shot every beaver they had the chance to.


We can still shoot them here

But when we shoot beaver now, Indians dont come looking for us. We dont have beaver anymore - but we do have plenty of alligators.

There is very little mention in the original writings of shooting beavers. Especially while in known hostile country. It was risky enough just checking traps.

Keep in mind also, that prices for goods in the mountains was greatly inflated. There was often a markup upwards of 2000% on the price of goods at rendezvous compared to in St. Louis.

They ate their horses when they ran out of food, and the horses were pretty skinny by that point too.

But yes, very manly men.

My bet is that the average weight per beaver was a little less than 2 lbs since they were catching colony beaver on small streams and caught all they could including the kits. Also, a large percentage of the beaver were caught in the fall hunt before complete primeness. A little less weight on those than heavy winter and early spring beaver.

Thanks for sharing Tomahawk. Good stuff.

Gotcha. Haven't watched that show, but understand your point.