A Brief History of the Fur Trade Part 1

 This post first appeared on March 6, 2021

The Role of Beaver in the European Fur Trade

Prized for their warmth, luxurious  texture, and  the  longevity of fur as a material, furs have played a large role  in clothing people since the beginning of  human  history.  For everyday use or costume and decoration, furs  have been used for the  production of outterware such as  coats and cape, garment and shoe lining, a variety of head  coverings, and ornamental trim and trappings. 

European and Asian trade in felts and fur stretched back centuries, if not millennium.  Depending on the supply of animals, Russian, Northern Scandinavia, and Central Asia were the major supplies of this trade through the 15^th  century. Furs were supplied to the Mediterranean and Middle East through Constantinople.  This trade can be traced back to the Classical Greek and Roman periods, and through to the modern era.  In the ninth and tenth centuries, Scandinavian and Viking Rus traders traded to Northern and central Europe a variety of furs including: marten, reindeer, bear, otter, sable, ermine, black and white fox, and beaver.^[1]  There was a substantial population of the European Beaver throughout northern Europe and Siberia, until they became severely depleted in the 17^th century due to over-hunting.  

From fur pelts three primary materials used in clothing production can be derived:  the full pelt (fur and skin), leather or suede (the skin with all fur removed, and felts (removing the fur  from the pelt, and processing it with heat and pressure to  form a piece of pliable material).  Due to the strength and  malleable quality of felts, they were used extensively in hat making.  The physical structure of beaver fur predisposes it to the felting process, making it a highly desirable fur for felt production. Wool felting was known "as early as Homer and as late as Caesar, felt was used for cheap protection against arrows and as padding under heavy metal armour."^[2] It has been suggested that it was in Constantinople that wool felting techniques were first applied to beaver fur.^[3]  From there, knowledge of felting spread north, to Russia, along trade routes.  J. F. Crean suggests that wool felting likely spread to western Europe after the sack of Kiev by the Tarters in 1240, when artisans fled west.  However, beaver felting  techniques did not diffuse westward, and the beaver felting industry  remained centralized in Russia until the late 17^th century. With a monopoly on both supply and industry, the Russians developed and refined techniques for processing beaver fur.  Essential to the felting process was a step known as combing, which separated the beaver's guard hairs from the downy under wool that was desired for felts.  The careful guarding of this trade secret helped to maintain the Russian  monopoly. 

Beaver pelts could be made into either full-fur or felted-fur  hats. Evidence of felted beaver hats in western Europe can be  found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14^th  century: "A MERCHANT was there with a forked beard / In motley, and high on his horse he sat, / Upon his head a Flandrish beaver hat."^[4]  Beaver hats were imported into England from Holland and Spain until the 15^th century, after which England was able to obtain beaver felts from Russia, via Holland, and manufacture the actual hats within the British Isles.

Nonetheless, George Stubbes reported in his Anatomie of  Abuses that beaver hats were sold at 40 shillings a piece  and were "fetched from beyond the sea,"^[5]  indicating that the British industry was not, or was not able, to  completely control the domestic market.

Unfortunately, due to population depletion of the European beaver, by 1600 nearly all exports of beaver fur and felts from Russia stopped.

To be continued...

Feinstein, Kelly. Fashionable Felted Fur: The Beaver Hat in 17th Century English Society. 

Bill and Alfred's Excellent Adventure

 This post first appeared on March 24, 2021

Disclaimer: These images and text were taken directly from the Internet, and while the reproductions are of poor quality, they remind the readers that the much of what we know about the Mountain Men during the Shining Times comes from first hand accounts. In this respect we have an accurate visual reference to dress and equipage. Wikipedia was the primary source, and links have been provided.  

In 1832, the Scottish aristocrat and adventurer Sir William Drummond Stewart (26 December 1795 – 28 April 1871)  travelled to St. Louis, Missouri. He brought letters of introduction to William Clark, Pierre Chouteau Jr.; William Ashley* and other prominent residents. He arranged to accompany Robert Campbell, who was taking a pack train to the 1833 rendezvous of mountain men. The party left St. Louis on May 7 and attended the Horse Creek Rendezvous in the Green River Valley of Wyoming. Here Stewart met the mountain men Jim Bridger and Thomas Fitzpatrick, as well as Benjamin Bonneville, who was leading a governmental expedition in the area. With some of the men, Stewart visited the Big Horn Mountains, wintered at Taos, and attended the next rendezvous at Ham's Fork of the Green River. Stewart attended the 1835 rendezvous at the mouth of New Fork River on the Green and reached St. Louis in November. In May of 1836, he joined Fitzpatrick's train to the Rockies for another rendezvous on Horse Creek.

For the rendezvous of 1837, Stewart took along an American artist, Alfred Jacob Miller (January 2, 1810 – June 26, 1874), whom he hired in New Orleans. Miller painted a notable series of works on the mountain men, the rendezvous, American Indians, and Rocky Mountain scenes. In 1839 he delivered finished oils to Stewart, who hung the works in Dalpowie Lodge on the Murthly estate in Scotland. Working from watercolor sketches he had made during their trip to the Rockies, Miller painted many canvases while an artist in residence on the estate.**

For us, the historical significance of Miller's work cannot be underestimated. We have a first hand account of life on the prairie based on his preliminary sketches. Besides the details of dress and life style, his work captures the grandeur of the American West. In his paintings one can't help but feel how small the explores stood against the backdrops of flowing rivers and the endless expanse of the great plains.

As is proper, on-line reproductions of fine art are rendered in low resolution, in part to prevent digital pirating. To appreciate these paintings and illustrations, one needs to see them reproduced from authorized sources. I have several books on Miller, and can attest to the fact that his paintings contain far more detail than these pixilated images extracted from the web. I encourage you to remember the name and see if your local library has any books on his art. 

Sir William Drummond Stewart Meets Chief

The Lost Greenhorn

Bartering for a Bride (The Trapper's Bride), 1845

Free Trappers In Trouble

Pierre

In this final image, we can see that pipes were carried on small neck lanyards, pistols weren't uncommon, decorative quillwork adorned the leather outer shirt, and that a second layer of clothing was worn beneath. Notice too that fringe appears on the major seams of the shoulders and the sleeves, which is there to wick water away from the threads holding the garment together.

I hope you'll encounter the works of Alfred Jacob Miller in works depicting the Fur Trade Era. The are as accurate a representation as one can get from the time. and can serve as a reference when a buckskinner seeks to make his persona as accurate as possible.

* William Henry Ashley (c. 1778 – March 26, 1838) was an American miner, land speculator, manufacturer, territorial militia officer, politician, frontiersman, trapper, fur trader, entrepreneur, and hunter. Ashley was best known for being the co-owner with Andrew Henry of the highly successful Rocky Mountain Fur Incorporated, otherwise known as "Ashley's Hundred" for the famous mountain men working for the firm from 1822–1834.

** Swiss painter Karl Bodmer (11 February 1809 – 30 October 1893)  predates Miller as a painter of the west, something that I discovered while researching this post. Like Miller, he worked at the behest of another nobleman, Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied.