Fort Union Trading Post Historic Structures Report (Part II) Historical Data Section

The late 1840's saw an increase in the number of visitors at Fort Union. Mountain man, priest, scientist, and artist found their way to its hospitable table. None other than Jim Bridger, the tallest tale-teller in the West, arrived with a group of trappers to spend the winter of 1844-45. Beaver trapping was down to a trickle now; Bridger had already opened his own trading post on the Oregon Trail. But he and his friends would spend this winter in the company of real fur men. William Laidlaw, in charge of the fort that winter, offered Bridger every assistance. However, Laidlaw did not think that Bridger was "a man calculated to manage men, and in my opinion will never succeed in making profitable returns." Indian in habit and deed, these trappers pitched their tipis on the prairie about one-half mile from the fort. There would be plenty of visiting back and forth. [1]

Among the employees at Fort Union at this time was a young Scotsman, Alexander Hunter Murray, who had joined the American Fur Company almost as soon as he came to America. He would work on the upper Missouri from 1844 to 1846 then move to Canada to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. In later years, he was the builder of Fort Yukon in Russia's Alaska and the factor at Lower Fort Garry in Manitoba.

Murray probably would have escaped notice at Fort Union had he not been a talented artist. He sketched the fort as well as several others on the Missouri, including nearby Fort Mortimer. His original sketches have not been found and, since Murray was so painstaking with detail, history is much the poorer. Second-rate copies of his sketches have been preserved; these, with their limitations, provide still another source of information about the fort. [2]

In 1847, the same year the Protestant medical-missionary, Marcus Whitman was to be killed by the Cayuses, Father Nicholas Point, a Jesuit who had first entered the Pacific Northwest mission field with Father De Smet, went down the Missouri river for the last time. From Fort Lewis he traveled down to Fort Union by barge; there he caught the steamer Martha for St. Louis. While at the post he made two of his small sketches. Like Catlin, Point was better at portraits than at architectural detail. Nevertheless, his sketches also add to the body of knowledge of Fort Union. From St. Louis, Point went to Canada where he died at Quebec City in 1868. [3]

A few months after Point boarded the Martha, an adventurer arrived at Fort Union with a new twist. John Palliser, a footloose tourist, decided that he would like to winter at Fort Union. The only other travelers to have done that were Maximilian's party who stayed at Fort Clark during the winter of 1833-34. From Palliser's account we catch a flash of the fort during the long months of cold and quiet.

Old Man Kipp himself was bourgeois of Fort Union that winter and had, in fact, arrived with Palliser on October 27. [4] Kipp, with his many years of experience, was a favorite of the Indians, and two bands came in to welcome him back to the upper river. Palliser spent the shortening fall days hunting buffalo and exploring the wild country.

About Christmas a violent snowstorm brought a temporary stop to hunting and, as Palliser put it, made them prisoners of the fort. To celebrate the holiday, Kipp had a prime, small-boned heifer butchered. The company sat down to Christmas dinner with anticipation. However, one by one, they turned from their heifer steaks to get themselves some real meat--buffalo.

About that time, too, an epidemic swept through the fort. No one knew what it was, except that it was "a sort of cold that affected the throat like mumps." Denig was the acting doctor at the time and did what he could, until he too came down with it. That left Palliser, alone, responsible for a time to go hunting for meat for the tables.

He recounted that during the times they were snowbound, they led a very routine sort of life. Bells regulated their day: one to rise by, one for dinner, and one for supper. A cheerful fire brightened the dining room where "our mulatto cook served breakfast, consisting of fried buffalo and venison, round breakfast cakes of wheaten flour. . . and excellent flour, with the luxuries of cream and butter." The noon meal was similar except that there was no coffee with it.

During the winter, some Sioux came into the vicinity of Fort Union. Ordinarily they lived farther down the river where Fort Pierre was the center of their trade. In the future, however, there would be an increasing number of notices concerning Sioux in the vicinity of Fort Union. Their visits were not always welcomed with pleasure. On this occasion they killed several of the fort's milk cows. They also shot the post's purebred bull. In the best tradition, the wounded animal staggered into the fort and died at the foot of the flagstaff. It was a serious blow; the cattle could not be replaced until the next summer.

Palliser went back down to St. Louis in 1848. While in the city he visited Kenneth McKenzie. Undoubtedly he shared his winter's adventures with the ex-bourgeois. [5]

The trade in robes and the company's fortunes held up well in the mid-1840's, despite a few unexpected setbacks. At the end of 1845, Picotte wrote from Fort Pierre that Kipp could "rely that a sufficiency of grog will be brought up" to Fort Union. Meanwhile, Kipp was to promise alcohol so that the Indians would make their hunt. [6]

However, 1846 was the driest year yet on the upper Missouri. The company became embroiled in a serious lawsuit concerning its liquor operations, and Chouteau ordered a temporary stop to smuggling on the Missouri.

Nevertheless, Fort Union succeeded in at least keeping its whistle wet. H. H. Sibley advised the company that in the Red River Settlement there were "several private stills, and where it is probable the article might be procured and transported in carts to some points high up on the Missouri." He recommended as dependable Messrs. McDermot and Sinclair. The next mention of these gentlemen's names was notice that they had been paid $1,774.31 for "skins purchased." [7]

The year 1846 also brought Fort Union its third competitor when Harvey and Primeau and Company occupied Fort Mortimer, which again was called Fort William. [8] There was not much to compete for at the junction of the rivers two years later. Pierre Chouteau, Jr., wrote in 1848, "The Trade appears to continue as good as ever except at Fort Union where Buff o has disappeared all at once." Edwin Denig, now promoted to bourgeois at Fort Union, felt the effect of this. The bustling scenes that Maximilian had witnessed in 1833 were no more. Where one hundred men had milled about the fort, Denig's staff was down to less than ten by the summer of 1849. The number increased in the wintertime as various small outfits came in from the outposts. [9]

Denig may have been short-handed but he did not intend to sit around and let the fort fall down upon him. Indeed, under his management, Fort Union reached a new high in elegance. New objects began to appear such as an office water jar and a new clock. Still enjoying his music, Denig also ordered a new "clarinett" and a few reeds for it. He told Culbertson that although he had few men he was going to "put the fort in such a position that the property & people will be secure." If he could find a man who knew how, he would have a lime kiln burned. [10]

In 1850, Alexander Culbertson brought his brother Thaddeus up to Fort Pierre for a visit. Thaddeus, interested in fossils and seeking to improve his health, explored the Badlands then took the steamboat up to Fort Union. He was as impressed by the handsome setting as all those who preceded him. In his journal he recorded only one structural detail that no one else had mentioned--the dimensions of Larpenteur's wicket: "A room also is built against the wall by the gate, in which they used to trade through a small hole about one foot square in the wall." [11]

Thaddeus struck it off well with Denig, who gave him a "very fine bow with a valuable quiver and arrows, which I will keep as a memento of this trip." He did not have much time to enjoy it. He left Fort Union in June and in August died at home, 27 years old, of bilious dysentery. [12]

The next year, 1851, was a landmark of sorts. When Capt. Joseph La Barge tied up the St. Ange at Fort Union's landing, the first white woman ever to see the fort was aboard--Mrs. La Barge. Uncharacteristically, Denig did not make note of this event; we do not know if he entertained Mrs. La Barge or even if she stepped ashore. [13]

Thoroughly documented is the arrival of Rudolph F. Kurz, a 28-year-old Swiss who had traveled to America to capture the wild West on canvas. To support himself, he had signed on with the American Fur Company. He had left St. Louis on the same boat as Mrs. La Barge, but had disembarked at Fort Berthold, his first assignment. That September he traveled by horse to Fort Union to report to Denig for work. Arriving at the post, Kurz mentioned seeing the "white bastions" from a distance.

Kurz was not overly impressed with his new boss on first meeting him, "a small, hard-featured man wearing a straw hat, the brim of which was turned up in the back." He decided too that Denig was "a rather prosy fellow." However, as soon as Kurz saw the dinner that Denig had had prepared, he changed his mind "at once concerning this new chief; a hard niggardly person could not have reconciled himself to such a hospitable reception in behalf of a subordinate who was a total stranger to him." Kurz dove into the chocolate, milk, butter, omelet, fresh meat, and hot bread--"What a magnificent spread!"

Kurz' first assignment was to paint the bourgeois' house. Although this was rather far from his kind of painting, he wanted to do a good job because of Denig's kindness to him. "Every evening he sits with me, either in my room or in front of the gate, and relates experiences of his earlier life." Denig told Kurz he had been at Fort Union 19 years (since about 1832). Kurz was especially struck, however, with the fact that Denig had two wives, referred to as the younger one and the older. [14]

In his conversations with Denig, Kurz learned how Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company had organized the trade on the Missouri and Platte as of 1851:

Mr. Culbertson is agent for the upper Missouri outfit and has supervision of three posts: Fort Union, Fort Benton, and Fort Alexander. Mr. W. Picotte is agent for the lower Missouri outfit, which includes . . . Fort Pierre, Fort Lookout, Fort Vermilion, Fort Clarke, and Fort Berthold. Mr. Papin is agent on the Platte, having charge of Fort Hall and Fort Laramie. A bourgeois or head clerk is stationed at each post. He receives a fixed salary of $1,000 and a stated percentage on sales.

The less a bourgeois has to pay for the upkeep of fort, in salaries for employees, and for skins and furs, the greater will be his profit. . . . Clerks and engagees are paid on an average the wage they receive in the United States, but they are required to buy everything from the trading post. . . .

A craftsman or workman receives $250 a year; a workman's assistant is never paid more than $120; a hunter receives $400, together with the hides and horns of the animals he kills; an interpreter without other employment, which is seldom, gets $500. Clerks and traders who have mastered [Indian languages]. . . may demand from $800 to $1,000 without interest. All employees are furnished board and lodging free of charge. [15]

Kurz quickly learned too that a post had a rigid social organization that could be seen most clearly in the dining room, "Hunters and workmen eat at the second table, i. e., meat, biscuit, and black coffee with sugar." The clerks ate at the burgeois' table: "We have meat, well selected, bread, frequently soup and pie on Sundays." But everyone, from top to bottom, had to supply his own bedding; "however, one may borrow two buffalo robes from the storeroom." [16]

Kurz described the palisades in much the same manner as others; his remarks showed too that the walls were beginning to show their old age and that repairs were necessary: "The palisades. . . are fitted into heavy beams that rest upon a foundation of limestone." They "are further secured by supports of crossed beams on the inside." While he was at Fort Union, the wall on the west side, "where the supports were badly decayed," blew down before new beams were ready. To Kurz, the job of cutting trees and preparing the timbers for the palisades seemed a most "laborious and difficult task." [17]

Both the north and south gates were still in operation at this time. Kurz told about an Indian on horseback chasing his wife out on the prairie. She reached the fort and banged on the south gate "and before I could let her in. . . the man was already pounding at the opposite gate."

The pressroom that Denig had described in 1843 still served its original purpose. Kurz paid it a visit one day to list all the different kinds of furs in it. He found over twenty species, ranging from mouse to grizzly bear. The ice house also was still in use, "Our only occupation at the moment is the storing of ice in the ice house." He described how some men cut the ice and carry it to the river bank, others load the blocks into a cart, and still others take the cart to the ice house, "and I have to count the number of loads delivered." In mentioning how valuable the ice was in summer, he mentioned that the fort's water supply still came from the river. [18]

On his first night at Fort Union and at a later time, Kurz described the interpreters' room in the western range. It was "rather like an Indian's habitation. On the floor near me were three beds [of buffalo robes] for three couples of half-Indians and their full-blooded wives." On the second occasion, a group of gamblers and on-lookers were in this room, "dimly lighted by the open fire and one candle." The crowd consisted of Indians, whites, and half-breeds; "eight Herantsa and seven Assiniboin sat opposite one another on the floor, encircled about a pile of bows, quivers, knives, calico, etc."

Kurz did not say where his own room was, but it was near enough to the interpreters' that the noise of their gambling kept him awake. On another occasion, he mentioned that his room was near the dining room. Thus it would seem he was in the west end of the main house across the yard from the range containing the interpreters. Except for a leaky roof his room was a comfortable one, "furnished with bedstead, two chairs, and a large table." Later on, he acquired an Indian wife, whose few possessions were added to the scene. [19]

Kurz' painting chores at Fort Union were the subject of many a diary entry. Denig directed him to first paint the front of the bourgeois' house, then to decorate the "reception room" with pictures. Next, he was to paint a life-size portrait of Denig "that is to hang in the office where it will strike the Indians with awe."

The artist gathered his materials from "the principal building, in the warehouse, in garret and cellar." He found "many oil colors (neither very good nor complete)," a marble slab with a grinder, and five measures of oil. Two clerks, Owen McKenzie and Packinaud, came to help him and, on September 6, he began painting the balcony and the reception room. By 1851, the balcony was a two-storied affair, and the central dormer windows upstairs had given away to a full second floor. A gallery, or widow's walk, crowned the top of the house.

Kurz worked very hard on the house and apparently had it finished, as well as the picket fence in front, well before the end of September. Meanwhile, he had other tasks, "Mr. Denig expressed the wish that I paint also a sideboard in the mess hall; it was not sufficiently glary when finished, so he decided to improve its appearance himself." Kurz disliked that kind of painting, so he took care to praise Denig's work highly, "in order to be rid of it once and for all."

Next Kurz undertook portraits of Denig and of Natoh, Denig's favorite dog. The bourgeois gave him permission to do also a watercolor of the bourgeois at Fort William, Joseph Picotte. Although Denig liked only life-sized oil portraits, Kurz undertook to make his boss a copy of a pen and wash sketch he had done of the interior of the fort. [20] In February 1852, Kurz did two more sketches of the interior of the fort from the southwest bastion. All three sketches have survived, all are excellent in their details, and together they tell more about the fort than any number of words. [21]

The next painting project was to reproduce the likeness of the company's president, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., on the gable above the second-floor porch at the front of the house. Denig gave Kurz a trade medal that had Chouteau's profile on it. Kurz took only two days to do the portrait, but he "had to work in a most uncomfortable position on an unsafe scaffold." Kurz did not mention a painting that many years earlier another clerk, J. B. Moncrevier, had done for the top of the main gate--a treaty of peace between Indians and whites. [22]

One day Denig discovered a nude figure that Kurz had sketched. Denig wanted to hang it in the reception room, but he was so unwise as to make some crude jokes about it. Kurz became angry. He probably refused to let go of this particular picture; he wrote later that "for the sake of keeping on good terms with my bourgeois I began to paint another female figure, but not entirely in the nude." [23]

On his next visit to the fort, Alexander Culbertson was so impressed with the oil of Denig that he wanted one of himself. Kurz was troubled by the lack of proper materials, "ceruse, black, vermilion, Prussian blue, yellow ochre, and chrome yellow are the only colors I have, while my brushes are those used, in general, for the beard and for flat painting." He finished the portrait however and it was hung in the reception room where Indian women and children soon damaged it. [24]

Still other assignments came Kurz' way. He had to paint the bourgeois' 3-dog sleigh (a cariole) red and black. About this time Denig hit upon the idea of Kurz' undertaking the painting of 15-foot flags, each having an eagle in the center on stripes of red and white. Denig would use these as gifts for Indian leaders or would trade them for "the handsome price of 20 robes apiece." One of these eagle flags joined the portrait in Denig's office. Kurz attended a meeting in this office between Denig and Le Tout Pique, a Cree chief. His busy pen sketched this scene, including the flag and the oil. [25]

Ever since the first cannon arrived at Fort Union, it was the practice to fire a salute for every arriving and departing boat and distinguished visitor. On January 2, 1852, Kurz acquired the job of firing a three-gun salute for a band of Absarokas approaching the fort. It was not an easy task:

I fired three times with our 4-pounder that stands on the gallery above the river gate. As there were neither cartridges nor match cord at the fort I had to wrap a load of powder in paper and thrust it into the barrel, then ram it with shreds and rags of leather, clear out the vent with an iron pin, put powder on the pan and touch it off with a burning brand. And all by myself. It was in loading the gun after this clumsy fashion that old Gareau. . . lost an arm. He thought it unnecessary, after having fired, to stop the vent while reloading. [26]

The painting projects out of the way, Kurz was appointed to the more responsible position of clerk. His duties included opening the gates every morning, closing them in the evenings, opening them during the night if visitors came, reporting all strangers found outside the fort, keeping an eye on the two bastions and their contents, in charge of the press room, supervising the meat supply, assisting at saddling and unsaddling horses, and looking after the tools.

It was this last assignment that vexed Kurz. He found tools everywhere--in the saddle room, meat house, storeroom, outhouses, bastions, even thrust under beds. What was so aggravating to him was Denig's expectation that Kurz knew where everything was at any given moment. In a fit of tamper, Kurz wrote, "Mr. Denig would be supremely happy to be put in command of at least 10,000 men. . . . To command is his greatest pleasure; desire to command his most characteristic trait. "

Part of the problem was that Kurz received his position as clerk at the same time Denig and Culbertson were sitting down to some serious drinking, as was the wont of just about everyone in the fur industry except Charles Larpenteur. Kurz recalled that neither man was sober enough to give him instructions, and that someone gave him "a bunch of ten keys" with no instructions as to what they were for. Still, Kurz had to admit that he had learned a lot lately, including the differences between tallow and lard, between tender and tough meat, and between ox steaks and cow steaks. "It is quite a while," he wrote, "before one knows all the various terms for fresh meat, cured meat, lard, corn, water, 'open the door,' etc., in seven different languages." Denig might get cross when the young clerk forgot to feed the pigeons or failed to praise the younger Mrs. Denig's new ball gown; yet there were more days when Kurz liked Denig than there were days he did not. [27]

There were times for fun too, such as the dance the engages gave, at their own expense, in the dining room. Or the ball that Denig gave to which he invited all the men and their families from the opposition fort. "We decorated the room as brilliantly as we could with mirrors, candles, precious fur skins, and Indian ornaments," described Kurz. As for Denig, he had to play the fiddle all night, there being no one else who knew how. Kurz, since he did not dance, "beat the tattoo on the drum" and played a tambourine. Fort William returned the favor within the week, which ball was the occasion for another excellent sketch of Fort Union by Kurz.

Then there was the day of the Indian attack. One evening, a horse guard, Joe Delores, galloped up to the gate screaming, "Blackfeet!" Everyone poured out to help get the horse herd into the fort before the Blackfeet stole them. The rumor flashed that the Blackfeet were in the Garden Coulee, east of the fort. "With great trouble," reported Kurz, "the men got all the horses together just as a man emerged from the spot where the enemy was suspected. Who should it be but our negro, Auguste! He had been looking for berries." [28]

However, there were Indians at Fort Union that winter. Back in November, Kurz had written that there were so many Indians around that Denig was planning to have an Indian lodge built. As it was, the visitors were crowded "into at least five rooms already occupied." An Indian village of thirty tipis stood on the south bank of the Missouri. Kurz thought the view was most romantic with the tipis in relief against the forest, the bare trees laden with snow. At the same time, on the north bank, set on the gleaming, snow-covered prairie, stood

a group of gaily colored tents with their attendant poles from which are suspended trophies, such as scalps, buffalo beards, strips of red cloth, etc. . . . men walking about. . . youths at their games, girls carrying water, women trudging in with wood, cleaning and scraping hides; horses grazing or tethered near their owners' tents. . . a multitude of dogs. [29]

Besides the various structural details of the post itself, Kurz' diary mentions various places and activities outside the fort with which earlier visitors had become acquainted. Like Audubon, he climbed the hills to the north in order to enjoy the view of the Yellowstone and beyond. He dropped down the east side of the hills into the upper part of Garden Coulee: "I was forcing my way through. . . (the deep bed of a dried-up stream thickly overgrown with coppices and bushes, over against which lies our potato garden)." He jumped "across the now insignificant brook and was proceeding with rapid strides toward the horse pasture when I heard a rustling of dry leaves behind me and someone laughed." Fortunately, the noise came from two friendly Assiniboins.

When Kurz was at Fort Union, the timber yard apparently was up the river a short distance. In October, when some Indians left, he wrote, "They were to be put across the river near the timber yard because that's the place where the boats are kept." On another occasion, he noted that someone had gone to "the 'Chantier,' a place in the forest up the river where workmen and laborers. . . are getting beams ready for the palisades." In his third mention of the timber yard he said simply, "workmen set out for the timber yard to get lumber ready to build the new Indian lodge at the fort." [30]

Maximilian commented on the new powder magazine in the fall of 1833, but did not mention its location. Kurz described it as being to the rear of the warehouse. While such a description could mean to the north or to the east, recent archeological excavations indicate that it was at the north end of the store range. [31]

Kurz' stay at Fort Union lasted only seven months. In the spring of 1852, he got ready to go down the river, taking his precious sketches home to Switzerland. Did he later think back much on his days at Fort Union? Did he ever recall the cold winter day when there was no firewood except in Denig's quarters? Kurz' diary told of the bourgeois sitting there "quite comfortable in his large arm chair, smoking his short-stem pipe beside his iron stove that glows with a rousing fire. The instant I . . . hold my hands over the delectable base burner. . . the bourgeois invariably finds a new task that takes me into the cold." And did he ever think again of his fellow workers, the French Canadians? He did not like them at Fort Union because they boasted too much about their homeland. He recorded the derisive little song

Je suis du Canada
Je me font de ça
J'ai des pommes de terre
Pour passer l'hiverre.

(I am from Canada
I am a part of it
I have potatoes
Enough to pass the winter. ) [32]

But the time had come to go. On April 18, Kurz wrote, "Fare thee well, Fort Union! Mr. Culbertson arrived by boat yesterday. He will take Morgan and me." [33] Another actor passed from Fort Union's stage.