Happy New Year everyone.

Let's start this year off by highlighting some of the lesser, or barely, known men who went West.
Very few of the men could read and write, even fewer kept journals. We know some men, simply because their name was mentioned once or twice by someone else in their writings.
So here's to the "Marginal Men."
All excerpts from "Marginal Men" by James A. Hanson and Samantha Eickleberry.

Ezekiel Abel: A free trapper killed along with companions Adams, Peter Spoon and J. Lorimer by Blackfeet on the Yellowstone in 1829. from "Reports of the Fur Trade to Mexico, 1831"

Auguste Bourbonnais: One of the Missouri Fur Company's engages who accompanied Manuel Lisa up the Missouri in 1812.

Carney (or Curry): One of the trappers with HBC brigade leader John Work, 1831-32. He outran the Blackfeet who killed fellow trappers J. Cloutier, Lewis and Philips.

Joseph Denoyer: An employee of the Sibille & Adams mentioned as bringing in dried meat from an Indian camp along with "1 lady".

Elbridge: Accompanied Osborne Russell on the spring 1839 beaver hunt, who referred to him as "my old comrade...he was a young man from Beverly, Mass., and being bred a sailor, he was not much of a landsman, woodsman or hunter, but a great , easy, good-natured fellow, standing five feet ten inches and weighing 200 pounds."

Garreau: A trapper working for Fontenelle & Drips, he was killed along with Meno on the headwaters of the Yellowstone in 1829.

J.M. Hunter: one of four Rocky Mountain Fur Company trappers attacked by Indians on Gray's Creek, August 19, 1831.

Laferrier: The trader at Fort Union, North Dakota after J.B. Moncrevier was discharged for intoxication in 1835. Noted for having mixed laudanum in the drinks of quarrelsome guests.

Antoine le Rouge: A mixed blood Pawnee; possibly the son of Antoine Ledoux, a trapper on the Arkansas in the 1830's. Parkman met him along with John Sybille, Paul Dorion, and others on Horse Creek near Fort Laramie.

Loretta: A New Mexican trapper with Jim Bridger. According to Joseph Meek, he recued a Blackfeet woman from the Crows and married her. She was acting interpreter for Jim Bridger when the Blackfeet supposedly attacked (some say Bridger initiated the fight) and her horse threw her. Bridger was shot twice in the back with arrows, and the Blackfeet carried off the woman. She was distraught because her baby was in a carrier attached to the horse's saddle. Loretta, the husband, took the baby in his arms and unarmed, carried it to the mother in the Blackfeet camp. The Blackfeet chief so admired his courage that he let him liive, but would not release the mother. The next year they were reunited and Loretta was made interpreter at Fort McKenzie.

Palo: Trapper with Jedediah Smith's brigade, killed in 1827 on the Colorado River at Yuma Crossing.

Peter Ragot: A trapper with Smith, Jackson & Sublette, he was killed in the Rocky Mountains by Blackfeet in 1827.

Caravan: Trappers Crossing the River, by Alfred Jacob Miller

As usual, a very interesting read.

Thank you.

Nicely done, thanks for taking the time to do this for us. I for one really appreciate your effort in providing all this history. Thanks

Thank you for a very interesting and informative article A great read to start the new year with

Thank you, k snow. You provide a reason to look forward to Monday.

I sure hope you have more than just this to look forward to.

But thanks anyway!

Fascinating read. Thanks for sharing and keeping that history alive.

I'll add one more name with his pic (from later years): "Stephen Meek" Older brother to the more well known Joe. He was nearly hung by members of a wagon train he guided on Meek's cutoff through Harney county Oregon. After a several year drought the water he had seen many years earlier along the route was gone.

Thank you, K Snow, for this interesting share. So many men must have lived interesting lives that details have forgotten.

Typically, I am always interested in the horses and gear of the time that they used. I'm not sure if old photos in any number are available , which is too bad. To see what these mountain men used is very interesting to me. As well as the quality horses they possibly owned.

Mountain men surely were knowledgeable of good horses and the best gear for long distance riding they could own. Being the objects of hostile native encounters, I would imagine they would save to trade or buy the best mounts they could. No rusted out jalopies for a man who depended on strength and endurance to stay alive.

If I may , here are a few old photos to share. As the time eras advanced, many natives made quick use of the headgear and saddles of European invention . The Nez Perce photo with the appy shows some decent gear . It seems most Mountain men preferred saddles and proper gear for comfortable rides year round.



A superb athletically built endurance paint horse. A good choice of a "turning " bit , one I have and used for years too. English hunters like these snaffles for good control on hunter jumpers in cross-country endurance racing. This native knew his bit styles.

Sharon,

I'll try to dig up some horse references in the coming weeks.
Yes, they used saddles, stirrups and bits. And spur, even when wearing moccasins.
As to the quality of horses, there were plenty of times when they took what they could get, cause having no horse could mean death.
And they used their mounts hard.

If I may, here are some more names to add:


These men were murdered in a deadly ambush on some of my beaver trapping grounds by the local Indian tribe. We are indebted to one of the men on the memorial, Harrison Rogers, who kept a company journal and ledger for Smith's trapping expedition across the Mojave, through California and on into Oregon along the coast driving a herd of 300 horses and mules. The journal was later recovered by a Hudson Bay brigade.

Reading this thread got me reading about Lewis and Clark and their horses. Pretty interesting.

https://lewis-clark.org/horses/horse-chronicles/

I had not yet read Sharon's post on horses when I posted my last one mentioning the horses being driven up the California and Oregon coast. Probably only people who have been on the Oregon coast can imagine the effort necessary to blaze trail to get a horse herd through. It speaks to what a valuable commodity these horses were.

Jedediah bought the horses (and some mules) in California where they were plentiful for about $10 each and he expected to drive them up the coast and then into the Rockies where he anticipated they would be worth about $300 each.

In fact, one of the circumstances that led to the murder of Smith's party had to do with a camp ax used for breaking trail that was stolen by an Indian.

KS, I appreciate your interest in my outside the box norm...but I wouldn't want to inconvenience you to frustration in time. I imagine there isn't that much info , outside what clubs of modern day folks reproduce in their Mtn Man or Cavalry authentic yearly rondys. I just mainly think out loud on this stuff

Beav, your info is great. Thank you. I can imagine the demand for good mules and horses back then. Everyone wanted them. Imagine how the natives thought of the sight of their first mules....much less trying to work with them if they were impatient and mean....mules don't take kindly to strong arming.

OhioBoy, your thought reminded me of the first time the expedition saw herds of the finest selective bred horses the Nez Perce owned. The Nez Perce was the only tribe known to selective breed to precision their horses, to get the best in the country. They were so impressed, that Lewis &Clark made special effort to describe these superior horses as resembling the finest coursers in the world , similar to Europe's.

These horses were the sole reason the Cavalry chased them in mid winter , led by Chief Joseph, to Canada. Strong soldiers on the best mounts the military could get couldn't keep up with the band of older men, women, children , and the remunda of horses . Having more love and concern for his people over keeping up the chase in brutal depths of snow and cold, Chief Joseph gave his heartfelt speech in surrender. Later, those fine horses were either shot or deliberately cross-bred to drafts and mules to take the endurance and strength of speed out of them.

The photo I posted , of the Nez Perce men with the Appaloosa, is a later era example of draft cross-breeding. That horse shows the hefty build and suggestive feathering of the fetlocks and pasterns. That horse would still have been tough and fast, as warm bloods are today, but they were not the speed and elegance of the refined herds and the native's attentive efforts in thought of breeding.

Later, a man named Claude Thompson worked hard to reinvent the original Indian Appaloosa , and started the Appaloosa Horse Club in 1938.

Thank you for that reminder. And to the Clark expedition for writing these amazing facts into history.

It is truly a shame that much of the knowledge skill American Indians had is now lost.

https://lewis-clark.org/sciences/mammals/wild-horses/


Catlin described the Indians’ technique for catching and taming wild horses:

The usual mode of taking the wild horses is, by throwing the laso whilst pursuing them at full speed, and dropping a noose over their necks, by which their speed is soon checked, and they are “choked down.” The laso is a thong of rawhide, some ten or fifteen yards in length, twisted or braided, with a noose fixed at the end of it; which, when the coil of the laso is thrown out,drops with great certainty over the neck of the animal . . . . He instantly dismounts, leaving his own horse, and runs as fast as he can, letting the laso pass out gradually and carefully through his hands, until the horse falls for want of breath, and lies helpless on the ground; at which time the Indian advances slowly towards the horse’s head, keeping his laso tight upon its neck, until he fastens a pair of hobbles on the animal’s two forefeet, and also loosens the laso (giving the horse chance to breathe), and gives it a noose around the under jaw, by which he gets great power over the affrighted animal, which is rearing and plunging when it gets breath; and by which, as he advances, hand over hand, towards the horse’s nose, he is able to hold it down and prevent it from throwing itself over on its back, at the hazard of its limbs. By this means he gradually advances, until he is able to place his hand on the animal’s nose, and over its eyes; and at length to breathe in its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile . . . so that he has little else to do than to remove the hobbles from its feet, and lead or ride it into camp.


Today there are only two areas reserved by Federal government for wild horses. One is on the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada; the other, shown here, is in the mountains in south-central Montana that are named for Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor. The herd consists of approximately 180 genetically unique horses of Colonial Spanish-American heritage, originating in Portugal and Spain, that have roamed freely throughout the Pryor Mountains since at least the time of the Expedition. Horses were brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers, who landed at Vera Cruz in 1519, but it was nearly 200 years thereafter that the Shoshone Indians became the first Plains tribes to acquire them, in 1690. Another 20 years past before the Nez Perce got them, about 1710. Slowly but steadily the other great tribes began to develop their own herds: the Crows about 1730, the Blackfeet and the Mandans at mid-century, followed by the Sioux and the Plains Cree in 1770.

Thanks Ohio Boy for the write up about the Pryor Mtn. horses they are really neat to see I was fortunate enough to work in that area for 30 years Bad Pass was used by the mountain men and of course indians from what is now Ft Smith Mt then roughly followed the Bighorn River towards Lovell Wy There is a Buffalo jump in that area called the Dry Head that some of the Crow Indians showed me very interesting to hear about it from their perspective also if you go on west up over the Pryor,s you leave the reservation for national forest awhile but then you get on Sage Creek and can see Pryor Gap that was used by the mountain men from Pryor Creek to the Shoshone River Lots of history in that region

Many thanks for your educational info, OhioBoy.

Typical rough capturing then. Not a lot different from the old time cowboy techniques. If I recall correctly, the Nez Perce were so proud of their carefully bred horses, they also had superior training from foals to adults. They were working teammates .

Arabian lineage earmarked the Spanish horses , along with some other native breeds. How the mustangs turned into such homely, unattractive conformation types always amazed me. The Nez Perce made up for all that.

Snow's Mtn Man week is a good one.