On this #TBT, we return to our series on the adventures of Wilson P. Hunt and the Astorians.

As John Jacob Astor’s agent in the fur trade, Hunt led an 1811 expedition of roughly 60 men to secure a fur trading post at the Columbia River’s mouth. These explorers, dubbed the Astorians, were the first large group of fur traders to strike a trail through the Powder River Basin and the Bighorn Mountains.

In our last post, the Astorians had concluded trading at a Crow village near the present-day HF Bar Ranch. One of their party, Edward Rose, the son of a white trader father and a Cherokee and African American mother, had been causing tension.

 September 2, 1811 – Departure of Edward Rose

 Historians think the group’s September 2nd campsite might have been in the vicinity of the North Fork of Crazy Woman Creek drainage.

 There are two different stories regarding Astorian Edward Rose for September 2nd:

Hunt version:

… On September 2nd we had received a visit from some Absarokas [Crow] of a band which was different from the one we had recently left and which was camped in the mountain. Consequently, I suggested to [Edward] Rose that he remain with these indians, offering him half of his year’s wages, a horse, three beaver-traps, and some other things. He accepted these terms and immediately quitted his confederates, [second group of Crow Indians] who, no longer having a leader, continued the journey [remained with the Astorian expedition].

Irving version:

The next morning [Morning of September 2nd], bright and early, Mr. Hunt proposed to resume his journeying. He took a ceremonious leave of the Crow chieftain, and his vagabond warriors, and according to previous arrangements, consigned to their cherishing friendship and fraternal adoption, their worthy confederate Rose; who, having figured among the water pirates of the Mississippi, was well fitted to rise to distinction among the land pirates of the Rocky Mountains.

 

Sources:

Hunt, Wilson P., and V.A. Malte-Brun. Nouvelles annales des voyages

Irving, Washington. Astoria, Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains.