Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Personal Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872
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Book Overview
The son of French immigrants who settled in Maryland, Charles Larpenteur was so eager to see the real American West that he talked himself into a job with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1833. When William Sublette and Robert Campbell sold out to the American Fur Company a year later they recommended the steady and sober young Larpenteur to Kenneth McKenzie, who hired him as a clerk. For forty years, as a company man and as an independent agent, the Frenchman would ply the fur trade on the upper Missouri River. Based on Larpenteur's daily journals, this memoir is unparalleled in describing the business side and social milieu of the fur trade conducted from wintering houses and subposts in the Indian country. As Paul L. Hedren notes in his introduction, Larpenteur moved comfortably among Indians and all levels of the trade's hierarchy. But he lived during a time of transition and decline in the business, and his vivid recital of his personal affairs often seems to bear out his feeling that he was "born for misfortune." His lasting legacy is this book, which is reprinted from the one-volume Lakeside Classics edition of 1933.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0803279302
ISBN13:9780803279308
Release Date:April 1989
Publisher:Bison Books
Length:388 Pages
Weight:1.00 lbs.
Dimensions:0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
Mountain man, fur trader and keen observer
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
Charles Larpenteur's capabilities as a writer, his presence in the American wilderness at a time when many were not literate, his submersion in the fur trade in positions of responsibility, all make him a unique, worthy read. The reader is removed from the adventure fantasies and romance, carried into the day-to-day details of the life of a man who became a mountain man early in life and remained one until the trade was no longer a viable institution. A mountain man worrying about profit and loss far more than fights with wild tribesmen, a man who knows white men and studiously avoids being tricked or ruined by their wiles and their competition for trade with the Indians. Larpenteur has been used as a reference by almost every work written about the fur trade, but his own work needs no references. Read it.
A classic
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
Captivating! This is an accurate and vivid account of the day to day and year to year activities associated with the early American fur trade era. Pick up any book on this subject and you will find that this book is used as a reference. Larpenteur spent much of his time at the Fort Union trading post in present day Montana where the Yellowstone River empties into the Missouri. This is his story of how the actual trading was carried on, relationships with the Indians and resulting battles that oftentimes would occur, along with the inner relationships amongst the fur companies and military, the hardships which had to be overcome, etc. He shouldered heavy responsibilities and it is apparent that at times he would get somewhat down on himself for not accomplishing or meeting his goals. If he were alive today, he would see that his journal would erase all those self doubts and misconceptions that he had of himself. A great book.
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