Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (37 page)

averages about 45 degrees
: Paul S. Auerbach, M.D., ed.,
Wilderness Medicine: Management of Wilderness and Environmental Emergencies,
3rd ed. (St. Louis: Mosby, 1995), p. 105.

body’s core temperature begins
: Ibid., Fig. 4-4, p. 109.

86 
has lost a good part of his or her ability
: Ibid., pp. 115–16.

After four hours in water
: Ibid., Fig. 4-10, p. 116.

Modern research shows
: Jack Wang et al., “Asians Have Lower Body Mass Index (BMI) but Higher Percent Body Fat than do Whites: Comparisons of Anthropometric Measurements,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
(July 1994): 23–28.

87 
seized Weeks’s clothing in their teeth
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 64.

keep working his muscles to generate body heat
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 92, and Irving,
Astoria,
p. 83.

Around midnight, with a rising wind
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 89–90.

88 
The following morning, March 26
: Franchère and Ross disagree on the date of the
Tonquin’
s bar crossing. Ross places it one day later. Ross,
Adventures,
p. 58; Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 87.

“You did it purposely”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 63.

the other Hawaiian lay down atop him
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 92.

89 
“I paused for a moment”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 65.

feet bleeding, legs swollen
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 96.

90 
brothers Lapensèe and Joseph Nadeau
: Ibid., p. 86.

CHAPTER SEVEN

93 
dancing had lasted until midnight
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, pp. 66–67. Also see journal entry of Samuel Bridge, from Montreal, ibid., pp. 412–13.

94 
In essence, Astor would buy into the existing
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 55.

with china and white linen tablecloths
: From personal visit to Fort William Historical Park, Ontario, Canada, July 2012. The North West Company’s Fort William has been meticulously re-created as it was circa 1815 at this site near the original Fort William on Lake Superior’s western shore.

95 
wilderness delicacies such as fatty beaver tail
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 24, and from inventories in the Great Hall at Fort William Historical Park.

wintering partners voted in favor
: David Lavender,
The Fist in the Wilderness
(1964; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 125, 443 fn. 7, and Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 63.

96 
guard their own interests on the Pacific side
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 64.

97 
Astor wrote to Hunt
: Ibid., p. 139.

“No establishment of the [United] States on that river or on the coast”
: Ibid., p. 56.

98 
Koo-koo-Sint
: Jack Nisbet,
Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America
(Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1994), p. 151.

The message from the North West Company wintering partners
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
pp. 62–64. The instructions themselves from the wintering partners to Thompson do not survive.

CHAPTER EIGHT

99 
On the morning of May 26
: John Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America, in the Years 1809, 1810, and 1811, Including a Description of Upper Louisiana
(London: Sherwood, Neely & Jones, 1817), pp. 77–78.

He had been scalped
: Ibid.

101
his own hair-raising encounter the previous year
: Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 130–31; Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
p. 161; Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 90.

thirty-some members to a full sixty
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 131.

“Mr. Hunt, in his eagerness to press forward”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 182.

ten-oared riverboat
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 11.

102
Astor had promised Jefferson to share
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 124.

Daniel Boone
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 16.

103
which he wrote down
: Ibid., pp. 17–21. Bradbury reported that he had heard about Colter’s sighting of the forty-foot-long fish from William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, then in charge of U.S. Indian affairs for Louisiana Territory, based in St. Louis.

104
The whoops grew fainter:
For a physiological description of this phenomenon, known as EIPH, see A. J. Ghio, C. Ghio, M. Bassett, “Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage After Running a Marathon,”
Lung
184, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 2006), pp. 331–33. Abstract retrieved December 14, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17086462.

isolated fur post on the Yellowstone River
: Ibid., p. 21n; Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1, p. 119.

105
commissioned by the Linnaean Society
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 143.

Psoralea esculenta: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 21.

Meriwether Lewis as being at least partly responsible
: Ibid., p. 18n, and Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 146, 179.

Several young Blackfeet tried to steal
: Ambrose,
Undaunted Courage,
pp. 360–63.

take all possible precautions
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 146.

106
twenty-four-year-old Ramsay Crooks
: Crooks was born in January 1787, in Scotland, to a shoemaker.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography,
vol. 8, s.v. “Crooks, Ramsay,” http://www.biographi.ca.

steady, even-tempered, and considered
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 130, and
Dictionary of Canadian Biography,
vol. 8, s.v. “Crooks, Ramsay.”

piercing, deep-set, dark eyes
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 138.

Born in Baltimore to a respectable family
: Ibid., p. 135.

107
he would shoot him on sight
: H. M. Brackenridge,
Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri River, Performed in 1811,
in
Early Western Travels,
vol. 6, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1904), p. 111.

served as a Sioux interpreter
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 138.

107
she escaped into the woods along the river
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
pp. 12–14, and Irving,
Astoria,
p. 144.

Five-year-old Jean Baptiste
: “Marie Dorion,” entry in National Women’s History Museum, http://www.nwhm.org, retrieved October 1, 2013.

108
Sacagawea had adopted European dress and manners
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
pp. 32–33.

on April 21, 1811
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 46.

109
voyageurs as
embarrass: Ibid., p. 32, April 2, 1811.

110
“Behind our house there is a pond”
: Ibid., p. 13. Bradbury recorded that the Canadians were “measuring strokes of their oars by songs” and that there were singing calls and responses from oarsmen in bow and stern, or the steersman sang while the rest of the oarsmen provided the chorus.

Two years earlier, in the spring of 1809
: Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1, p. 141–44. Chittenden gives an account of Andrew Henry and Manuel Lisa’s Missouri Fur Company’s early venture at Three Forks.

“The [Blackfeet] Indians were so intensely hostile”
: Ibid., vol. 1, p. 142.

111
let their empty canoes drift away downstream
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 77, entry for May 26, 1811.

112
leave the Missouri River
: Ibid., pp. 78–79, and Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 179–80.

infused more with the spirit of brotherly love than mortal combat
: Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1, p. 57 and p. 64 n2.

Old photographs of scalping victims:
See photograph of scalping survivor Robert McGee, in Library of Congress collections at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c05942. Other accounts of scalping survivors can be found at http://www.futilitycloset.com/2008/02/20/how-the-west-was-won.

113
constrict the blood vessels quickly and slow the loss
: Conversation with emergency physicians Dr. Doug Webber and Dr. Gary Muskett, December 2, 2011.

114
that Hunt had received a letter from Astor
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 244.

“O mon Dieu! Abattez le voile!”: Bradbury,
T
ravels in the Interior of America,
p. 78.

115 “Ou est le fou?”: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 102.

1,075 miles up the Missouri
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 78.

“anxious enquiry”
: Ibid., p. 79.

Hunt polled them
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 180.

CHAPTER NINE

118
The chief’s powerful Indian oratorical voice
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
pp. 110–11, journal entry for June 12, 1811.

“
M’Clellan, in particular, carefully watched”
: Ibid., p. 111.

118
Arikara women bobbing down
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 112, entry for June 12, 1811.

119 “O meu Dieu! Ou est mon couteau!”:
Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 103.

“I had several times to stand between”
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 107, entry for June 5, 1811.

120
an elderly chief, or priest, climbed to the lodge’s rooftop
: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
p. 112. The account of the meeting with the Arikara chiefs is contained in both Bradbury and, in more condensed form, Brackenridge.

121
“[They] were going on a long journey to the great Salt lake”
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 113.

“This candid and frank declaration”
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 113.

122
the Sioux had blockaded Hunt’s riverboat
s: Bradbury,
Travels in the Interior of America,
pp. 82–89, journal entry for May 31, 1811.

123
“Smoking”
: Ibid., p. 113n. The custom was explained to Bradbury by Ramsay Crooks.

124
“No people on earth discharge the duties of hospitality”
: Ibid., p. 169.

worked out in advance
: Ibid., p. 125.

“I was wondering”
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 130, entry for June 18, 1811. Both Brackenridge, an American and a journalist, and Bradbury, who was British and a scientist, give a great deal of enthnographic information about the Arikara, although in Brackenridge’s case, it is frequently of a disapproving nature.

a total of eighty-two horses
: Wilson Price Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for July 18, 1811, in
New Annals of Voyages, Geography and History,
vol. 10. (Paris: J. B. Eyies and Malte-Brun, 1821), translation available at http://user.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/wphunt/wphunt.html, retrieved October 2, 2013.

125
Sacagawea was ill and wanted to return
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
pp. 32–33. Brackenridge was also on Lisa’s riverboat, with Sacajawea and Charbonneau.

They had left their son
: Editor’s footnote in ibid., pp. 32–33, about Jean-Baptiste.

filled their heads with horror stories
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 219.

126
“[T]he grass was knee-high
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for July 24, 1811.

127
“honest and clean”
: Ibid., journal entry for August 5, 1811.

Hunt’s riverboats, having been sold to Lisa
: Brackenridge,
Journal,
p. 146.

“experience many difficulties”
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 168. Gratiot is a business correspondent of Astor, from ibid., p. 50.

129
gracious hospitality
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 224.

130
piney forests
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for September 6, 1811.

“There, among others”
: Ibid., journal entry for September 4, 1811.

131
for trout or grayling
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 175.

132
“Spanish River”
: Hunt, “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and His Companions,” journal entry for September 16, 1811.

133
He posed the question
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 268. “The vote, as might have been expected, was almost unanimous for embarkation,” writes Irving, who had direct access to several participants.