98 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 176 



ployed from four to five hundred trappers and hunters, nearly a 

 thousand horses, and from two to three thousand dollars' worth of 

 merchandise (Nicollet, 1845, p. 65). In 1840, said Nicollet (probably 

 on the basis of information furnished him by the Chouteau firm it- 

 self), the principal posts were withdrawn, the company "limiting 

 itself to the purchase of buffalo robes, and other peltries of less value." 

 Reasons advanced in his report include that of the difficulty of com- 

 peting with the Hudson's Bay Company, lacking "certain privileges" 

 refused it by the Congress ; the "enormous duties" to be paid on goods 

 imported for the trade, as well as those levied by the United King- 

 dom, defeated the company's operations or "rendered them too oner- 

 ous." Such statements, doubtless intended to influence political ac- 

 tion on behalf of the traders, specifically the Chouteaus, reveal some- 

 thing of the intricacy of the historical development of trade in 

 the West. 



With the steamboats, others besides traders also visited the region, 

 often as guests of "the company." Travelers such as George Catlin, 

 Prince Maximilian and Carl Bodmer, Nicollet and John C. Fremont 

 are among those who came, particularly during the 1830's. By the 

 1850's, the U.S. Army also found ways to go to the upper river by 

 steamboat, as in 1855 when Harney's troops were transported thither 

 from St. Louis in the course of his expedition against the Sioux. 



Among the travelers, at least one left some record of Fort Pierre 

 II, which, according to custom, he calls Fort Pierre, ignoring the 

 fact that the original Fort Pierre Chouteau had already passed into 

 history. This was the German-born artist, Charles Wimar, who in 

 both 1858 and 1859 came by steamboat, probably also as a guest of 

 the Chouteaus. Wimar later prepared a plate of drawings, showing 

 each of the more important establishments of the firm (reproduced 

 in Chittenden and Richardson, 1905, vol. 2, frontispiece) . The loca- 

 tion of the original of this plate — drawings probably intended for 

 lithograph engraving — is not now known, but individual sketches of 

 some of the subjects (e.g.. Fort Berthold I, in present North Dakota) 

 have fortunately been preserved. Inasmuch as Wimar's first visit to 

 the upper river did not take place until 1858, after the abandon- 

 ment and probable disappearance of old Fort Pierre Chouteau, his 

 sketch of that post must have been based upon some other view, per- 

 haps that made by Bodmer in 1833, and lithographed in color in the 

 atlas accompanying Maximilian's Travels (published in Coblenz, 

 1839-41) . It is curious but understandable that Wimar, on his plate of 

 drawings, should have shown a post formerly used by the company 

 here, Fort Pierre Chouteau, rather than that then actually in use, 

 Fort Pierre II. Nor is any finished drawing of the latter to be found 

 among surviving drawings by Wimar. 



