THE COLORADO MAGAZINE Published Quarterly by T he State H istorica l Societ y of Colorado Vo l. XXXI Denver, Col orado, J uly, 1954 Number 3 The Bean-Sinclair Party of Rocky Mountain Trappers, 1830-32 LEROY R. HAFEN Fort Smith, Arkausas, was the heart of a region early and prominently identified with the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains. To this general area had come a number of traders, who established posts for traffic with the Indians. Among those who located aboYe Fort Smith, in the "three forks" region-where the Verdigris, Neosho (also called Grand and Six Bulls), and the Arkansas rivers unite-were the Chouteaus, Nathaniel Pryor (of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition), and I-Iugh Glenn. Soon after 1800 Pierre Chouteau of St. Louis had induced part of the Osages to move to this country at the head of navigation on the Arkansas and had established good relations with them.1 About 1820 his son Auguste Pierre took charge of the family trading post at the Saline on the Neosho and was to make his home there the, rest of his life. This A. P. Chouteau, who became the most influential figure in the region, was no stranger to the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains. In fact, he had headed the first large trapping ventlu·p to the upper Arkansas and the southern Rockies. This undertaking, the important Chouteau-De Mun venture of 1815-17, met with mis­ fortune when the company furs and equipment were confiscated by the Spaniards and the men were imprisoned.2 After this un­ happy experience Chouteau was content to go to the country near Fort Smith (founded as a military post in 1817) and there seek a safe profit from trade with the Osages. ·while A. P. Chouteau and other venturers were building important trade with the Osages, Cherokees, and other Indians of the Arkansas-Oklahoma region, business men of St. Louis were carrying on profitable trade with the Indians of the upper Missouri country and were sending out trapping expeditions to the central and northern Rockies. This activity is amply treated in the numer­ ous books on the fur trade of the far West. 23 _ 2 ~.Grant Foreman, Pioneer Days in the Early Soitthwest (Cleyeland, 1926), 2 "The Journal of Jules De Mun," in the Missonri Historical Society Collec­ tions, V, nos. 2 and 3. 162 COLORADO MAGAZINE THE BEAK-SINCLAIR PARTY OF TRAPPERS 163 Of special interest for our present subject is the Arkansas came from Xew York and became sutler at :B'ort Smith. As a good region activity that forms the background for the Bean-Sinclair business man he developed a large trade and accumulated much venture. In the late summer of 1820 Major Stephen H. Long (who property. After the original Fort Smith was abandoned he was in 1817 had chosen the site of Fort Smith) and Captain John to be instrumental in causing its re-establishment, and in 1836 C. Bell descended the Canadian and Arkansas rivers respectively sold the government the 306 acres for the new site. 7 3 and reached Fort Smith. The report of their explorations at In the Little Rock Gazette John Rogers ran during August, the foot of the Rocky Mountains and of the fur trapping possibil­ 1829, an advertisement that may have been inspired by, and in ities doubtless had some effect in stimulating commercial ventures any ewnt closely resembled that famous Ashley call for ''Enter­ into the area. In any event, two such expeditions were organized prising Young Men"-the advertisement which launched the suc­ the next year and pushed west to the mountains. cessful Ashley fur trade venture from St. Louis.8 The first of these was led by Hugh Glenn, who had a trading The Rogers announcement reads : house near the mouth of the Verdigris. This Glenn-Fowler company was to trap the upper Arkansas and the San Luis Valley of present TO YOUNG MEN OF ENTERPRISE Colorado.4 At the same time Thomas James and John McKnight The undersigned will start, on the 15th of Sept. next, from Fort Smith, on a Trapping Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. conducted a similar expedition on the Canadian and to New Mexico, He wishes to raise about 100 men for the trip, to be absent two lmving come from St. Louis by way of the Mississippi and Arkansas years. The company will choose their own officers, and be subject riyers.3 1\either party met with such success as to induce the to such regulations for their government as may be adopted by them. The articles of association are already drawn up and signed leaders to repeat the undertaking. by a number of persons. The outfit will be furnished by me, (with the exception of the horses and guns,) to such as may desire it. But some of the fur trade companies operating from St. Louis It is confidently believed, that this enterprise affords a prospect met with more encouragement. Also, many of the traders in the of great profit to all who may engage in it. rovered wagon trains on the Santa Fe Trail deserted the caravan John Rogers traffic in New Mexico to engage in fur trapping during the middle Ft. Smith, July 20th, 1829 " '20s on the waters of the Colorado, Green, and Gila rivers. Matters did not cleYelop quite as expected, as is evidenced 111 General \Yilliam H. Ashley, after two seasons of discourage­ this Gazette article of September 2, 1829: ments and disaster, reached the central Rockies in 1824 and quickly \Ve are requested to state that circumstances beyond the con­ garnered a fortune in furs.G His successors, Smith, ,Jackson, and trol of Captain Rogers, and the other gentlemen associated with Sublette and the Rocky 1\Iountain Fur Company, thrived in the him in fitting out an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, will years immediately following, despite the competition of Astor\; prevent the company from starting on the 15th inst., agreeably to his advertisement, which has been inserted in the Gazette for American Fur Company, traders from Taos, and Yarions other several weeks past, The time now fixed on, for the starting of the· small operators. Company, is the 15th of April, next, at which time it is confidently believed that it will be increased by the addition of a number of These excellent returns induced a number of independent com­ other members, and when, too, the season will be much more panies to enter the field. Prominent among these ·\Yere the Bean­ favorable for the undertaking, than it is at this late period of Sinclair compan:v of 1830, the Gantt and Blackwell party of 1831, the year. Capt Rogers has all the out-fit ready and in the best of order, and is extremely anxious to start at the time appointed : and the Donneyille and the ~athaniel \Yyeth rompanies of ] 832. but the scarcity of game and the difficulty of foraging their horses so late in the season, had induced him reluctantly to consent to The expedition that Robert Bean "·as to lead from Fort the above arrangement. Smith in 183"0 had its inception the year before. Captain ,John Rogers-not to be confused with Captain John Rogers the Cherokee 'fhe project was revived the following spring, Rogers now leader and trader who had emigrated from 'fennessee in 1817- being· joined by Colville and Coffee and William \Y. Fleming in promoting the enterprise and furnishing supplies. The ''Trapping •Edwin James, Accoimt of an Expedition from Pittsb1lrgh to the Roc/:11 Mo1wtains, etc., reprinted in R. G. Thwaite~ (Ed.), Early lVestern Tra1·els Expedition to the Rocky 1\Iountains" was to start from Fart (Cleveland, 1905), XIV-:h.'\TII. The Captain Bell journal, recently discovered and now in possession of Leland Stanford Univ<>r,ity. iR announced for publ!cat10n 'Grant Poren1an, Ad-i;ancing the Jl'ronlier, 1 830-1860 (Norn1an, Oklahon1a, in the Hafen and Hafen Series, Far l\"est and ll1r Rockies. 1933), 26, 42, 55. •'!"he principal narrative of the venture i~ Elliott Cones (Ed.), The Jo1lrnal s Ashley's well known advertisement, says Dale L. l\Iorgan, in his excellent of J<icob Fowler, etc. (New York, 1898). Jeclecliah Smith anc! the Opening of the lVest (Indianapolis, 1953), ran in the 5 The fullest account is General Thon1as . T~une~. Three Years Am.on!] the Misso1lri G<izette. February 13 to l\Iarch 6, 1822; in the 1Jf·isso1'ri R eP1' blican, Indians and .iliexicans (Waterloo, Illinois, l 46 J 1-:ditions by W. B. Douglas and l\Iarch 20-27, 1822; and in the St. Lo1'is Enqi<irer. February 26 to March 23, 1 822. by Dr. l\L l\L Quaife were published in 1 'l)f, 11<'1 1 •1;;·1 respectively. 9 The advertise1nent \Vas run in several issues. The copy I have is fron1 the o H. c. Dale, The Ashley-Smith J?,·p/ a ett (CleYeland, 1n1n. paper dated August 26, l 829 . 164 COLORADO MAGAZINE THE BEAN-SINCLAIR PARTY OF TRAPPERS 165 Smith on April 15; the men would choose their own officers and Our fullest list of membership of the party is that supplied be absent about two years; and there was ample outfit "provided by Jacob P. Leese: for from 200 to 300 men-at least 100 of whom are already en­ The company was organized on the first day of April, 1830, gaged. ' 110 and was composed of forty-two men, by name as follows: Capt. Robert Bean, William Bean, John Sanders, John Porter, Isaac We do not know how widely this advertisement was published Graham, Henry Nail, George Nidiver, Mark Nidiver, Alexander St.