Col. Robert Campbell's fur trapping decade of 1825-1835 in The Rockies.......Another of our Mountain Men report on the abundance of wildlife present in our Rocky Mountains at the dawn of the 19th Century.........7200 beavers harvested from a single years trapping............like Buffalo, a seemingly endless resource extirpated in a 50 year span 1800-1850

A NARRATIVE OF COLONEL ROBERT CAMPBELL'S EXPERIENCES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR TRADE FROM 1825 TO 1835

PREFATORY

The following narrative by the late Col. Robert Campbell, contains a sketch of his life and remarkable experiences while engaged in the Rocky Mountain Fur trade, during a period of ten years - from 1825 to 1835.
It was dictated to me in the year 1870, while I was accompanying him and Hon. Felix R. Brunot, President of the Board of Indian Commissioners as their Secretary, on a mission to Fort Laramie, to treat with Red Cloud. The notes were taken by installments after various intervals on our trip, while the narrator was in the reminiscent mood, and each recital was suspended as soon as he found it tiresome.
One thing more; on one occasion Col. Campbell stated to us the circumstances which induced him to go to the Mountains in 1825. He came to St. Louis he said, when a young man, seeking employment. He was an invalid, pale and subject to hemorrhages of the lungs. He saw old Doctor Farrar, who advised him, saying: "Young man your symptoms are consumptive, and I advise you to go to the Rocky Mountains. I have before sent two or three young men there in your condition, and they came back restored to health and as hearty as bucks."
 St. Louis, July 1886
William Fayel.

At that time (1833)the price of beaver rated at $3 per pound, and brought about $5 in St. Louis. There were eighty mules and we had 150 pounds on each mule. When we hadn't the means of weighing, - 60 beavers were rated at 100 pounds. When we trapped the first time in the country, they would average more. It would not take 60 beavers to made a hundred pounds, as the old beavers, before they were trapped out, weighed more than young beavers.

It was the same company that I went out to in 1833, furnishing supplies when we had our rendezvous on Green river. We then determined to open trade on the Upper Missouri, near Fort Pierre, for buffalo, with the Sioux Indians. We accordingly established trading posts in the country of the Mandans and Gros Ventres, and at the Mandan village, on Knife river. The Mandans lived in dirt lodges, dome shaped and in some respects, were in advance of other tribes.
Sublette went up in two keel boats, cordelling and sailing up the river. At the same time I went out to the Green River rendezvous.
 One night a mad wolf came into our three camps and bit ten or twelve men. He rushed into my camp and bit two of the animals.