Category: Biographies
In the summer of 1896 the author of this work, while engaged in collecting data for a history of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, met the venerable Missouri River pilot, Captain Joseph La Barge, at his home in St. Louis. In the course of several interviews he became dee...
The swift and turbulent character of the Missouri River led to exaggerated accounts by the early explorers of the difficulty of navigating it. Such navigation was at first consi...
21. CHAPTER XX.Having permanently left the service of the American Fur Company, Captain La Barge spent the three years, 1857–59, mainly on the lower river, not generally going above Council Bl...
11. CHAPTER X.The Missouri River pilot was beyond question the most skillful representative of his profession. In no other kind of navigation were the qualities of quick perception, intuitive...
9. CHAPTER VIII.We have now followed the career of Captain La Barge through the various experiences of youth and early manhood until he is finally settled in the business of his subsequent life...
20. CHAPTER XIX.Few, if any, towns in the Far West country possess so unique and varied a history as Fort Benton. With the exception of some of the old Spanish villages in the southwest it is t...
18. CHAPTER XVII.During the season of 1854 Captain La Barge was in the employ of the government most of the time. In the previous winter Colonel Crossman, of the army, Quartermaster at St. Louis...
8. CHAPTER VII.The term “opposition” in the early Missouri River fur trade had a definite and specific meaning. It applied to any trading concern, great or small, individual or collective, whi...
13. CHAPTER XII.The voyage of 1843 is known in more complete detail than any other in the history of the river. There are two complete journals of it--the Sire logbook, just referred to, and th...
14. CHAPTER XIII.In the winter of 1843–44 the American Fur Company built a new boat, the _Nimrod_, designed to correct certain defects in the _Omega_, and in this boat the voyage of 1844 was mad...
16. CHAPTER XV.The annual voyages of 1845–46 were made on the steamer _General Brooks_. In the fall of the latter year Captain La Barge bought this boat for twelve thousand dollars, but sold h...
2. CHAPTER I.In the far-reaching operations of the French Government upon the continent of America, by which its western empire at one time embraced fully half of what is now the United Stat...
17. CHAPTER XVI.The _St. Ange_ left St. Louis on her voyage to Fort Union for the American Fur Company, June 7, 1851. She had on board about one hundred passengers, mostly employees of the Comp...
7. CHAPTER VI.After a few weeks’ visit among his friends in St. Louis in the spring of 1834 La Barge started back on the steamer _Diana_ for Cabanné’s post. Pilcher was no longer in charge, h...
15. CHAPTER XIV.Down to the date to which our narrative has now arrived, the steamboat business of the Missouri was mainly that of the fur trade. A small traffic was carried on with the settlem...
4. CHAPTER III.Captain La Barge did not immediately find an opportunity to visit the Indian country. The annual expeditions for the year had all gone. The _Yellowstone_ was already far away on...
6. CHAPTER V.In November, 1833, Pilcher sent La Barge down to a small trading post at the mouth of the Nishnabotna (river where they make canoes), kept by Francis Duroins for the convenience...
3. CHAPTER II.Joseph La Barge, son of Joseph Marie La Barge and Eulalie Hortiz, was born in St. Louis, October 1, 1815. He was the second child in a family of seven children, three boys and f...
5. CHAPTER IV.Before La Barge arrived in St. Louis the company had dispatched two boats to the upper river--the _Yellowstone_ and the _Assiniboine_. The voyage of 1833 is particularly notewor...
12. CHAPTER XI.The most important early use of steamboats upon the Missouri River was in connection with the fur trade, for this was the principal business conducted along the valley in the fi...
19. CHAPTER XVIII.The decade from 1850 to 1860 saw a very rapid growth in the steamboat business of the Missouri River. The stream of emigration across the plains continued practically unchecked....
1. CHAPTER XX.In the summer of 1896 the author of this work, while engaged in collecting data for a history of the American Fur Trade of the Far West, met the venerable Missouri River pilot,...