Pierre's Hole - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pierre's Hole, a shallow valley west of the Teton Range

Teton Range

The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. A north-south range, it is on the Wyoming side of the state's border with Idaho, just south of Yellowstone National Park. Most of the range is in Grand Teton National Park....

that collects the headwaters of the Teton River

Teton River (Idaho)

The Teton River is an tributary of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River in southeastern Idaho in the United States. It drains through the Teton Valley along the west side of the Teton Range along the Idaho-Wyoming border at the eastern end of the Snake River Plain...

in what is today the state of Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, was a strategic center of the fur trade of the northern Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

. Today, the valley is known as Teton Basin or Teton Valley, and in 1832 was irrevocably assigned a historic place, as the site of the infamous events in the Battle of Pierre's Hole (below).

Historical overview

Explorer and mountain man

Mountain man

Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...

John Colter

John Colter was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition . Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made during the winter of 1807–1808, when Colter became the first known person of European descent to enter the region now known...

, a member of the earlier Lewis & Clark Expedition, asserted that he passed through the valley in 1808. The Teton River flows northward though the mountain meadows of Pierre's Hole and then conjoins Bitch Creek (once known as the North Fork of the Teton) just before it turns west and into Teton Canyon. To mountain men, a large low-lying valley, such as this, with abundant beaver and game was called a "hole." Mountain men preferred these areas of numerous beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

rich streams as they provided ample food and comfortable camping in addition to beaver pelts. Pierre's Hole was named in honor of "le grand Pierre" Tivanitagon, a Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

trader said to be of Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...

descent, who was killed in a battle with Blackfoot

Blackfoot

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....

Indians in 1827.

Pierre's Hole was the site of the huge Rendezvous of 1832. Hundreds of mountain men, trappers, Indians and fur company traders met to sell furs or trade for supplies. At the end of the 1832 rendezvous, an intense battle ensued between a group of Gros Ventre and the party of American trappers aided by their Nez Perce and Flathead

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation are the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles Tribes. The Flatheads lived between the Cascade Mountains and Rocky Mountains. The Salish initially lived entirely east of the Continental Divide but established their...

allies.

After the fur trade subsided in the 1840s, Teton Basin returned to a quiet summer hunting valley for Native Americans

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

. An Englishman named, Richard ' Beaver Dick ' Leigh, came to the Teton region sometime around 1860, and frequently trapped and hunted in Teton Basin and wintered on the lower Teton River near its confluence with the Henry's Fork of the Snake some miles below the basin. Beaver Dick guided F. V. Hayden

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden

Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden was an American geologist noted for his pioneering surveying expeditions of the Rocky Mountains in the late 19th century. He was also a physician who served with the Union Army during the Civil War.-Early life:Ferdinand Hayden was born in Westfield, Massachusetts...

and his geological survey through the Teton and Yellowstone region in 1872. He guided the Stevenson party in exploration of Teton Basin and the first assent of the Grand Teton and guided the entire Hayden Expedition in Yellowstone and in Jackson Hole. In honor of his service, Leigh Lake in Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park is a United States National Park located in northwestern Wyoming, U.S. The Park consists of approximately and includes the major peaks of the long Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Only south of Yellowstone...

is named after Richard Leigh and Jenny Lake is named after his Indian wife. Teton Basin, was later settled by Mormon farmers, who used the fertile but elevated valley to graze cattle and raise hay and other feed.

Rendezvous at Pierre's Hole

The 1832 'rendezvous at Pierre's Hole', or 'Rendezvous of 1832' was one of the largest rendezvous held in the Rocky Mountains. The meeting was held at the foot of the Three Tetons in Teton County, Idaho

Teton County, Idaho

Teton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. Established in 1915, it was named after the Teton Mountains. As of the 2000 Census the county had a population of 5,999...

. The basin was accessed from a trail that reached the Snake River

Snake River

The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...

from Green River. The trail then branched off towards Pierre's Hole through a gap between the Big Hole Mountains and the Palisades range.

Indian and mountain man camps extended from Teton Creek on the south end of present day Driggs, Idaho

Driggs, Idaho

Driggs is a city in Teton County, Idaho, United States. It is part of the Jackson, WY-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area, and is located in Teton Valley. The population was 1,100 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Teton County...

north along the west side of the Teton Mountains to Tetonia, Idaho

Tetonia, Idaho

Tetonia, Idaho, in Teton County is 50 miles NE of Idaho Falls, Idaho and 425 miles NW of Denver, Colorado. The city is home to some 247 residents....

. The camps covered an area of seven square miles, or more. It is estimated there were four hundred mountain men, one hundred and eight lodges of Nez Perce, eighty lodges of Flatheads, and over three thousand horses.

Purpose of a rendezvous

A mountain man rendezvous was a yearly event held for American fur trappers to gather together, sell their furs and resupply themselves for another season of trapping. Representatives of eastern fur-trading companies would arrive with pack mules loaded with trade goods to meet the needs of the trappers for the upcoming year. If trappers were employed by a particular company, they turned their furs, mainly beaver, over to the company representative and received their pay, less the amount used to cover what they would need for another trapping season. Profits could purchase additional goods, including whiskey, tobacco, and other luxury items. Free trappers, i.e. men not contracted with a company, could negotiate a purchase price for their accumulated furs.

In general, trappers and merchants settled into a protected valley for two to three weeks. The larger group provided protection from hostile Indians and support during harsh weather. Small hunting groups traveled outward from the valley to obtain meat. The rendezvous would generally include recreation and entertainment, including contests, games and gambling. Most participants had a good time, swapping tall tales and drinking.

Trappers in attendance

The 1832 rendezvous was well attended by trappers affiliated with fur companies, independents, and a large number of allied Indians involved in the fur trade, primarily Flathead and Nez Perce. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company

Rocky Mountain Fur Company

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, sometimes called Ashley's Hundred, was organized in St. Louis, Missouri in 1823 by General William H. Ashley and Major Andrew Henry . They posted advertisements in St. Louis newspapers seeking "One Hundred enterprising young men . ....

had between one hundred and two hundred men, many led by William L. Sublette

William Sublette

William Lewis Sublette Born near Stamford, Lincoln County, Kentucky on September 21, 1798. Died on July 23, 1845 in Pittsburg. W.L. Sublette was a fur trapper, pioneer and mountain man, who with his brothers after 1823 became an agent of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company exploiting the riches of the...

, gather at the basin. Sublette and his caravan arrived on the 8th of July. Men from the rival American Fur Company

American Fur Company

The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest businesses in the country. The company was one the first great trusts in American business...

, under the leadership of W. H. Vanderburgh and Andrew Drips, also attended. Other small groups of trappers trickled in to Pierre's Hole, including Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger

James Felix "Jim" Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites...

, known for his tall tales. Many of these companies were from the Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

Rocky Mountain area.

Other well known mountain men at the summer meeting included Joe Meek

Joseph Meek

Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A pioneer involved in the fur trade before settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek would play a prominent role at the Champoeg Meetings of 1843...

, a veteran of twenty-two years, and his friend Milton Sublette

Milton Sublette

Milton Green Sublette was an American fur trader, explorer and mountain man. He was the second of four Sublette brothers prominent in the western fur trade; William, Andrew, and Solomon...

, brother of William. Thomas Fitzpatrick

Thomas Fitzpatrick (trapper)

Thomas Fitzpatrick, known as "Broken Hand", was a trapper and a trailblazer who became the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. With Jedediah Smith, he led a trapper band that discovered South Pass, Wyoming....

, known as "Old Broken Hand", had been in the basin earlier in the year, but had backtracked to meet William Sublette. Events turned sour for Fitzpatrick during his return when he met a party of Blackfeet. Presumed dead by his fellows, the injured Fitzpatrick managed to escape captivity and, with the aid of Iroquois "breed" trapper Antoine Godin

Antoine Godin

Antoine Godin , a Canadian fur trapper and explorer, is noted primarily for the public murder of a Gros Ventre chief which led to a battle between fur traders and Indians in Pierre's Hole, now called the Teton Basin, in eastern Idaho....

and some Flathead allies, return to the rendezvous before the pack trains headed back toward the east.

Two trappers new to the mountains, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth

Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth

Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was an American inventor, ice harvester, and explorer and trader in the far west.-Early life:Wyeth was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Jacob and Elizabeth Wyeth...

of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

and Captain Benjamin Bonneville

Benjamin Bonneville

Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville was a French-born officer in the United States Army, fur trapper, and explorer in the American West...

, made their first appearance at rendezvous that year. Wyeth led a party of Eastern tenderfeet on their way to Oregon to trade in furs and salmon. Bonneville left a description of the rendezvous:

In this valley was congregated the motley populace connected with the fur trade. Here the two rival companies had their encampments, with their retainers of all kinds: traders, trappers, hunters, and half-breeds, assembled from all quarters, awaiting their yearly supplies, and their orders to start off in new directions. Here, also, the savage tribes connected with the trade, the Nez Perces or Chopunnish Indians, and Flatheads, had pitched their lodges beside the streams, and with their squaws, awaited the distribution of goods and finery. There was, moreover, a band of fifteen free trappers, commanded by a gallant leader from Arkansas, named Sinclair, who held their encampment a little apart from the rest. Such was the wild and heterogeneous assemblage, amounting to several hundred men, civilized and savage, distributed in tents and lodges in the several camps. (Bonneville, "Chapter 6")

Battle of Pierre's Hole

About July 17, the 1832 rendezvous began to break up and fur trappers gradually began to separate into smaller groups. Henry Fraeb and Milton Sublette, with a group of some 100 trappers, planned to head for an area north of the Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere, the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around , but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its...

desert. Wyeth and his group of ten or eleven men from New England also set out. These and several other groups briefly traveled together for safety from the Blackfeet.

While in their first night's camp, a mere eight miles south of Pierre's Hole, the combined party was approached by a large migratory group of Gros Ventres

Gros Ventres

The Gros Ventre people , also known as the A'ani, A'aninin, Haaninin, and Atsina, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in north central Montana...

Amerindians men, women and children with pack animals, traveling from one camping site to another. A chief in the group came forward, apparently in greeting. Antoine Godin and a Flathead Indian

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation

"breed" (i.e. a half-breed) companion, sometimes identified as Baptiste Dorian, rode forward, appearing to greet the chief. As the three met, Godin shouted for the Flathead to shoot, which he did, and grabbed the chief's red blanket. The chief fell dead and Godin and the Flathead quickly retreated to the trappers' camp. Some accounts state that Godin paused to take the man's scalp

Scalping

Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...

.

The murder provoked an intense battle between the Gros Ventre, with an estimated 250 warriors, and the party of American trappers aided by their Nez Perce and Flathead

Flathead

Flathead may refer to:* Flat-head screwdriver, a screwdriver designed to turn slotted screws* Flat-head screw, a screw with a flat top, designed to be installed in a countersunk hole* Flathead engine, a valve configuration...

Amerindian allies. The badly outnumbered mountain men sent riders to the rendezvous site for aid and prepared the camp for attack. The Gros Ventres took shelter in a swampy thicket of willows and cottonwoods. The Indian women quickly collected fallen trees, throwing them together in a crude fortress.

Aid from the rendezvous camp, under the leadership of William Sublette, including additional Nez Perce and Flatheads, rushed to the scene of the coming battle. In one of five known eye witness accounts, Robert Campbell

Robert Campbell (Frontiersman)

For a list of other individuals by the same name, see Robert Campbell.Robert Campbell was an Irish immigrant who became an American frontiersman, fur trader and businessman. His St...

reported that the newly arrived William Sublette (the founder of Fort William as one resultant career change because of this battle) made a speech to rouse the men, and he and some twenty trappers, including the experienced Campbell, rushed towards the Indian stronghold in the willows. (Carter, p. 301) His brother, Milton Sublette took another group and led them against the rear of the ad-hoc fort the Gros Ventres had erected. The Flathead and Nez Perce closed on the flanks. Other trappers, including Wyeth and his party, held back and did not participate in the attack. Sublette was struck by a bullet during this initial forey. The attackers then backed off for a time before renewing hostilities.

The battle raged all day with little gain on either side. As night fell, someone within the Gros Ventres barricade shouted that they had reinforcements, "many Blackfeet", coming. The trappers somehow understood that Gros Ventres reinforcements were attacking the rendezvous camp ground and goods back at Pierre's Hole, and quickly mounted their horses and raced to Pierre Hole's to save their fellow trappers and wealth. However, no hostile Indians had attacked the remnant of the rendezvous. The following morning, returning trappers found the Gros Ventres fortifications abandoned, and that the amerind force had retired from the area.

Thirty horses found nearby included some that had been previously stolen from Sublette's supply train and two that had been taken from Thomas Fitzpatrick during his earlier escape from the Blackfeet.

In the brief but bloody battle at least twenty-six Gros Ventres were killed, including some women and children, and perhaps a dozen traders and Flatheads. Due to a bullet wound and a broken shoulder, William Sublette returned to the eastern United States under the care of Robert Campbell. The party arrived in St. Louis on October 3, 1832. (Carter, p. 302)
After he recovered, he returned to the east slope of the Rockies to found the trading post and fort sitting aside the gateway to South Pass

South Pass

South Pass is two mountain passes on the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. The passes are located in a broad low region, 35 miles broad, between the Wind River Range to the north and the Oregon Buttes and Great Divide Basin to the south, in southwestern Fremont...

and the Oregon Country

Oregon Country

The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...

on what was (in 1832 already) becoming called the Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...

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