Our gun club just hosted out annual July rendezvous. Its a small event, the hobby seems to be trending that way heavily over the last few years unfortunately.
It was a fun weekend, weather was pretty nice, though Friday was really hot and humid. Saturday and Sunday were nicer.
Lots of shooting, fun games for the women and kids and a Saturday evening potluck that was amazing.
Here's some references from the old days about rendezvous, it could be quite the wild time.

From John Ball, 1832:
Pierre’s Hole
Here in Pierre’s Hole was for us a grand time of rest and recruit. The Indians had an abundance
of good, dried buffalo meat which we bought of them and on which we feasted, took a bite of the
fat part with the lean, eating it like bread and cheese, uncooked or slightly roasted on the coals as
we chose. And I never witnessed such recuperation of men as during the two weeks we lay at our
ease in this camp, feeding on the dried buffalo meat, and our drink the pure cool mountain creek,
a branch of the Lewis river, on which we were encamped. And among us, a varied congregation
of some two hundred white men and perhaps nearly as many Indians, there was quite a social
time, and a great exchange of talk and interesting indeed, from the wide and varied experiences of
the narrators. There were cultured men from city and country down to white men lower than the
Indian himself. Men of high-toned morals, down to such as had left their country for its good, or
perhaps rather personal safety.

From James Beckwourth:
When all had come in, he [Ashley] opened his goods, and there was a general jubilee among all at the
rendezvous. We constituted quite a little town, numbering at least eight hundred souls, of whom
one half were women and children. There were some among us who had not seen any groceries,
such as coffee, sugar, &c., for several months. The whisky went off as freely as water, even at the
exorbitant price he sold it for. All kinds of sports were indulged in with a heartiness that would
astonish more civilized societies. The general transacted a very profitable trade with our Salt Lake
friends. He purchased all their beaver, of which they had collected a large quantity, so that, with
his purchases and those of our own collection, he had now one hundred and ninety-one packs, all
in excellent order, and worth $1000 per pack in St. Louis.

From Townsend:
22d. -- We are now lying at the rendezvous. W. Sublette, Captains Serre, Fitzpatrick, and other
leaders, with their companies, are encamped about a mile from us, on the same plain, and our
own camp is crowded with a heterogeneous assemblage of visitors. The principal of these are Indians,
of the Nez Perce, Banneck and Shoshone tribes, who come with the furs and peltries which
they have been collecting at the risk of their lives during the past winter and spring, to trade for
ammunition, trinkets, and “fire water.” There is, in addition to these, a great variety of personages
amongst us; most of them calling themselves white men, French-Canadians, half-breeds,
&c., their color nearly as dark, and their manners wholly as wild, as the Indians with whom they
constantly associate. These people, with their obstreperous mirth, their whooping, and howling,
and quarrelling, added to the mounted Indians, who are constantly dashing into and through our
camp, yelling like fiends, the barking and baying of savage wolf-dogs, and the incessant cracking
of rifles and carbines, render our camp a perfect bedlam. A more unpleasant situation for an invalid
could scarcely be conceived. I am confined closely to the tent with illness, and am compelled
all day to listen to the hiccoughing jargon of drunken traders, the sacré and foutre of Frenchmen
run wild, and the swearing and screaming of our own men, who are scarcely less savage than the
rest, being heated by the detestable liquor which circulates freely among them.
It is very much to be regretted that at times like the present, there should be a positive necessity to
allow the men as much rum as they can drink, but this course has been sanctioned and practised
by all leaders of parties who have hitherto visited these regions, and reform cannot be thought of
now. The principal liquor in use here is alcohol diluted with water. It is sold to the men at three
dollars the pint! Tobacco, of very inferior quality, such as could be purchased in Philadelphia at
about ten cents per pound, here brings two dollars ! and everything else in proportion. There is no
coin in circulation, and these articles are therefore paid for by the independent mountain-men,
in beaver skins, buffalo robes, &c.; and those who are hired to the companies, have them charged
against their wages.

The Green River Rendezvous of 1837, by Alfred Jacob Miller:

Here's some pictures from our rendezvous:







And for the 250th, we all signed a commemorative flag that will hang in our club house:

Nice! Appreciate the pics of the modern Rondy too. Good that there are folks that keep the era alive.

I wonder how far off Jimmy Beckwourth was on his valuation of a pack of beaver back in St Louis? A pack maybe 90-100 lbs? Might not have been far off at $1000 a pack.

Whiskey and rum being mentioned...watered down at that. I assume rum would have come from St. Louis (being derived from sugar cane) and (corn) whiskey perhaps from Taos?

Real interesting…love the history lesson.

Thanks.



Kenneth McKenzie, at Fort McKenzie among the Blackfeet, built his own still to make whiskey out of corn raised at the fort. This was done in response to the government banning alcohol import and trade into Indian Territory. He figured making it in country was fine, as long as he wasn't importing it. That eventually cost him his job.

Any evidence of McKenzie's hootch making its way to a rendezvous? Btw, wan't it Fort Union where he had a still?

Good crowd.

I'd be there ...if I was a local

Yep, it was Fort Union. I love history, but I am horrible at remembering names, dates and places.