THE BEAVER TRADE
--_A description of the wealth in furs of this section at the close of
the Revolutionary War and the reasons of the struggle for its control._
Perhaps no country ever held forth greater allurement to savage huntsmen
and French voyageurs than the territory acquired by Clark's conquest.
Its rivers and lakes teemed with edible fish; its great forests abounded
with deer, elk, bears and raccoons; its vast plains and prairies were
filled with herds of buffalo that existed up almost to the close of the
eighteenth century; every swamp and morass was filled with countless
thousands of geese, ducks, swan and cranes, and rodents like the beaver
and other animals furnished the red man with the warmest of raiment in
the coldest winter.
To give some idea of the vast wealth of this domain in fur bearing
animals alone, it may be taken into account that in the year 1818 the
American Fur Company, under the control of John Jacob Astor, with
headquarters at Mackinaw, had in its employ about four hundred clerks
and traders, together with about two thousand French voyageurs, who
roamed all the rivers and lakes of the Indian country from the British
dominions on the north, to as far west as the Missouri river. Astor had
established a great fur business in direct competition with the British
Northwest Company and commanded attention in both London and China. The
"outfits" of this company had trading posts on the Illinois, and all its
tributaries; on the Muskegon, Grand, Kalamazoo and other rivers in
Michigan; on the line of the old Potawatomi trail from the Wabash
country to post Chicago, and in the neighborhood of the Beaver lake
region in northern Indiana, and at many other points. The furs handled
by them consisted of the marten (sable), mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx,
wildcat, fox, wolverine, badger, otter, beaver, bears and deer, of which
the most valuable were those of the silver-gray fox and the marten. The
value of these furs mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars
and they were originally all consigned to New York. For these
interesting observations history lovers are indebted to the
autobiography of the late Gurdon S. Hubbard of Chicago, who was, in his
youth, in the employ of Astor, and who later in his lifetime conducted a
trading post at Bunkum, now Iroquois, in Iroquois County, Illinois. It
has been estimated that in the days of England's control of Canada and
of all the northwest territory, that more than half in value of all the
furs exported "came from countries within the new boundaries of the
United States," that is, from the district north and west of the Ohio
river.
Of all the fur-bearers, the most interesting were the beavers. How much
these industrious gnawers had to do with the French and Indian wars and
the rivalry between England and France for the control of their domain
north of the Ohio, is not generally appreciated. An animal that could be
instrumental in part, in bringing about an armed conflict between the
two greatest powers of that day, should not be entirely eliminated from
history.
At the time of Braddock's defeat, Colonel James Smith, then a boy, was
captured by what seems to have been a party of the Caughnawaga Indians,
some of whom lived along the rivers and streams in northern Ohio. He
lived among the savages for some years and was adopted into one of their
families. Later in life, he left a written account of many of his
experiences, and among other things he tells us some interesting things
concerning the beavers. "Beavers," says Caleb Atwater, an Ohio
historian, "were once here in large numbers on the high lands at the
heads of the rivers, but with those who caught them, they have long
since disappeared from among us." Before the Revolution, and for some
years afterward, they were caught by the Indians in great numbers. Smith
had a valuable friend among the Indians by the name of Tecaughretanego.
He was quite a philosopher in his way, but he was rather inclined to
believe, like most of his fellows, that geese turned to beavers and
snakes to raccoons. He told Smith of a certain pond where he knew all
the beavers were frequently killed during a hunting season, but they
were just as thick again on the following winter. There was seemingly no
water communication with this pond, and beavers did not travel by land.
Therefore it must be that the geese that alighted here in great numbers
during the fall, turned to beavers, and for proof of this assertion the
Indian called Smith's attention to their palmated hind feet. The boy
suggested that there might be subterranean passages leading to this
pond, whereby the beavers could gain access to it, but Tecaughretanego
was not entirely convinced.
In conversation with his Indian friend Smith happened to say that
beavers caught fish. The Indian laughed at him, and told him that
beavers ate flesh of no kind, but lived on the bark of trees, roots, and
other growing things. "I asked him," said Smith, "if the beaver was an
amphibious animal, or if it could live under water? He said that the
beaver was a kind of subterraneous water animal, that lives in or near
the water, but they were no more amphibious than the ducks and geese
were--which was constantly proven to be the case, as all the beavers
that are caught in steel traps are drowned, provided the trap be heavy
enough to keep them under water. As the beaver does not eat fish, I
inquired of Tecaughretanego why the beavers made such large dams? He
said they were of use to them in various respects, both for their safety
and food. For their safety, as by raising the water over the mouths of
their holes, or subterraneous lodging places, they could not be easily
found; and as the beaver feeds chiefly on the barks of trees, by raising
the water over the banks, they can cut down saplings for bark to feed
upon, without going out much upon the land; and when they are obliged to
go out upon land for this food they frequently are caught by the wolves.
As the beaver can run upon land but little faster than a water tortoise,
and is no fighting animal, if they are any distance from the water they
become an easy prey to their enemies."
The Indians caught great numbers of beavers by hunting and trapping. In
the winter time when they found the beavers in their houses, they first
broke up all the thin ice around about, and then by breaking into the
houses, drove the beavers into the water. Being soon forced to come to
the surface to take the air, the Indians commonly reached in and caught
them by the hind legs, dragged them out on the ice and tomahawked them.
Not only were the furs and skins utilized, but the flesh as well. Smith
describes the meat as being a "delicious fare." In the days before the
savages were corrupted by the French and English traders, they possessed
a wonderful skill in dressing the skins of the buffalo, the bear and the
beaver. Beaver and raccoon skin blankets were made "pliant, warm and
durable." Says Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, "They sew together
as many of these skins as are necessary, carefully setting the hair or
fur all the same way, so that the blanket or covering be smooth, and the
rain do not penetrate, but run off."
In the later days, however, the beaver proved to be more of a curse than
a blessing. The Indian then wore the European blanket, and bartered his
valuable furs away for whiskey and brandy. The riotous scenes of
drunkenness, debauchery and murder became unspeakable. To Detroit the
Indians swarmed from the shores of Erie and all the rivers in the
interior. Hunting for weeks and months and enduring privation, suffering
and toil, they came in at last with their women and children to buy
rifles, ammunition and clothing. Here mingled the Miami, the Potawatomi,
the Ottawa and the Wyandot; a motley gathering of all the tribes. In the
end the result was always the same, and always pitiful. The traders came
with the lure of fire water, and when they departed the Indians were
left drunken and destitute and often with death, disease and wounds in
their midst.
Smith gives a vivid description of one of their orgies at Detroit as
follows: "At length a trader came to town (the Indian camp) with French
brandy. We purchased a keg of it, and held a council about who was to
get drunk, and who was to keep sober. I was invited to get drunk, but I
refused the proposal. Then they told me I must be one of those who were
to take care of the drunken people. I did not like this, but of the two
evils I chose that which I thought was the least, and fell in with those
who were to conceal the arms, and keep every dangerous weapon we could
out of their way, and endeavor, if possible, to keep the drinking club
from killing each other, which was a very hard task. Several times we
hazarded our lives, and got ourselves hurt, in preventing them from
slaying each other. Before they had finished the keg, near one-third of
the town was introduced to this drinking club; they could not pay their
part, as they had already disposed of all their skins; but they made no
odds, all were welcome to drink."
"When they were done with the keg, they applied to the traders, and
procured a kettle full of brandy at a time, which they divided out with
a large wooden spoon--and so they went on and on and never quit whilst
they had a single beaver skin. When the trader had got all our beaver,
he moved off to the Ottawa town, about a mile above the Wyandot town."
"When the brandy was gone, and the drinking club sober, they appeared
much dejected. Some of them were crippled, others badly wounded. A
number of the fine new shirts were torn, and several blankets burned. A
number of squaws were also in this club, and neglected their corn
planting."
"We could now hear the effects of the brandy in the Ottawa town. They
were singing and yelling in the most hideous manner, both night and day;
but their frolic ended worse than ours; five Ottawas were killed, and a
great many wounded."
The marshes, lakes, rivers and small streams of northern Ohio and
Indiana, and of the whole of Michigan and Wisconsin, abounded with the
homes and habitations of the beavers. Behind them, as a memorial of
their old days, they have left the names of creeks, towns, townships and
even counties. The beaver lake region of northern Indiana has a Beaver
"lake," a Beaver "township," a Beaver "creek," a Beaver "city," and a
Beaverville to its credit. The history of Vigo and Parke counties,
Indiana, by Beckwith, Chapter Twenty, at page 208, recites that beavers
existed along all the small lakes and lesser river courses in northern
Indiana, They were plentiful in Dekalb, Marshall, Elkhart, Cass. White
and Steuben. It is well known that their dams existed in large numbers
in Newton and Jasper, and in practically all the Indiana counties north
of the Wabash river.
The above regions, with their wealth of peltries, England meant to hold
as long as possible against the American advance, and she succeeded in
doing so for twelve long years after the Revolution had closed.