The Story of Thomas Fitzpatrick, Mountain Man and Frontier Diplomat

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Fort Worth, Texas.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Our next story is brought to us by one of
the best Old West storytellers in the country, Roger McGrath.
McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Howyman and Vigilantes, Violence
on the Frontier. A US marine and former history professor
at UCLA, McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries,
and he’s a regular contributor for us Here and Our

(00:42):
American Stories. Here’s Roger McGrath with the story of legendary
mountain man Tom Fitzpatrick.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Tom Fitzpatrick, who’s one of the greatest of the mountain men.
He trapped nearly every beaver stream of the West and
became the leader of trapping parties halfway through his first
He’s in the mountains. He was a partner in the
famous Rocky Mountain fur Company. He made the effective discovery
of South Pass. He guided the first pioneer settlers most

(01:11):
of the way to California, and others all the way
to Oregon. He guided the first Catholic missionaries to the
Pacific Northwest. He was a guide for John C. Fremont
on the Second Expedition and a guide for Colonel Stephen
Carney during the Mexican War. He was Indian agent for

(01:32):
the tribes of the High Plains. He did it all.
Here’s Dublin, Ireland’s Miles Duncan Miles is a historian specializing
in nineteenth century Irish history and in the American West.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
I think he’s probably the single most significant Irish born
figure in the history off the American West, and there
were many significant Irish born figures in history. An irishman
who is virtually on known in his own country but
is rightly celebrated in the USA. According to his biographer
Leroy Hafen, no other man is so representative of this epoch.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Tom Fitzpatrick is born in County Cavan, Ireland, in seventeen
ninety nine. He has two brothers and four sisters. His
ancestors had been large land owners, but because of their
Irish nationalism, have suffered greatly under English rule and had
their lands confiscated. Fitzpatrick sees that his opportunity lies in

(02:37):
the new country across the Atlantic, the United States of America.
When he is sixteen years old, he leaves home and
signs on as a deckhand on a merchant ship. For
some time he sales high seas, but when his ship
puts in a New Orleans, he leaves the life of
a sailor behind. He makes his way the Mississippi and

(03:01):
settles in the booming frontier town of Saint Louis.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
When he arrived in Saint Louis, it coincided with the
publication of one of the most famous advertisements in Western history,
the ad in the Saint Louis newspaper The Missouri Republican,
which was published in eighteen twenty two and that read
to enterprising young men, the subscriber wishes to engage one

(03:27):
hundred men to ascend the River Missouri to its source,
there to be employed for one, two or three years.
The ad had been placed by the Lieutenant Governor of Missouri,
William Henry Ashley, and he’d made a small fortune in
the War of eighteen twelve by manufacturing gunpowder, and he
reckoned on making a real fortune, a big fortune by
supplying beaver fur to the milliners of the world. And Fitzpatrick,

(03:50):
along with Western legends two in particular, Jedediah Smith and
Jim Bridger joined Ashley’s force.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
The expedition ascends the Missouri River, traps the beaver streams
of the Northern Rockies, and has a memorable and bloody
battle with the Aricra Indians. The Ricra or Rees, as
the French fur traders and later American mountain men call them,
live in earthen lodges in villages along the Missouri River

(04:22):
in North Dakota. They fortify their villages for protection against
horse mounted marauding Sioux by building barriers of driftwood and
willow branches. The Res trade with other Indians and with Whites,
mostly fur traders or trappers. An unpredictable bunch, the Rees
more than once attack travelers after feigning friendship and a

(04:47):
willingness to trade. On the way down the Missouri River
after their first season or trapping, some thirty mountain men
of the Ashleigh Henry trapping party anchor their two boots
at the Arica village. Threes seem friendly and signal their
desire to trade. After an afternoon of trading, the mountain

(05:09):
men settled in for the night on the beach, and
the Rees returned to their fortified village on the bluff
overlooking the beach. The night passes quietly. Suddenly, just before sunrise,
rifle fire erupts from the ree village and rakes the beach.
The mountain Men are sitting ducks and out number ten

(05:32):
to one. They return fire, but in their exposed position,
the situation is hopeless. Before the mountain Men can get
into the water and board their boats, half of them
are killed many others are wounded. When the survivors reach
Fort Atkinson in Missouri and relate their tale of Aricora treachery,

(05:54):
Major Benjamin O’Fallon, the Indian agent for the Great Plains,
organizes a force to punish Therees. Included in what is
called the Missouri Legion are eighty mountain Men, Colonel Henry
Leavenworth and two hundred and thirty soldiers in more than
seven hundred Sioux warriors. Tom Fitzpatrick has made one of

(06:16):
the officers of the mountain Men. The Sioux see the
expedition of the Missouri Legion as an opportunity to attack
their old Aricorra enemies. So great is the Sioux enthusiasm
that they gallop ahead of the Missouri legion and attack
a group Ofrees who are caught outside the fortification of

(06:39):
their village. When the Whites arrive, they cannot fire for
fear of hitting their Sioux allies. Seeing the mountain men
and the soldiers take up positions around the village, the
Rees retreat inside their fortifications.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
And you’ve been listening to doctor Roger McGrath tell the
spell binding story of Tom Fitzpatrick.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
And what’s beautiful here is he’s.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Taking us back to what Saint Louis was like at
the time. And my goodness, this idea that Indian tribes
were working alongside frontiersmen to go after other Indian tribes.
That’s not a story you hear very often anywhere here
on our American Stories.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
We tell stories like this all the time.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
When we come back more on our American Stories, Leehabib here,
as we approach our nation’s two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
I’d like to remind you that all the history stories
you hear on this show brought to you by the
great folks at Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale isn’t just a
great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but

(07:47):
for you as well. Go to Hillsdale dot Edu to
find out about their terrific free online courses. Again, go
to Hillsdale dot edu and sign up for their free
and terrific online courses. And we continue with our American

(08:11):
stories and with doctor Roger McGrath telling the story of
legendary mountain man Tom Fitzpatrick.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Seeing the mountain men and the soldiers take up positions
around the village, the Rees retreat inside their fortifications. Behind them,
they leave a dozen Deadrees. The Sioux pounce on the
bodies and quickly chop them to pieces. After tying cords
to the severed arms, legs, hands, and feet, the Sioux

(08:44):
drag the body parts in a triumphal procession around the village.
Tom fitzpatrick and the other Whites watch the grizzly spectacle,
not realizing they are seeing only the opening act. An
old Sioux chief soon appears with one of his wives,

(09:05):
immediately in front of the village and with a war
club in her hand. The squaw reins blows down upon
the body of a dead Ree. At the same time,
the chief taunts the Rees for allowing a squaw to
club the corpse of one of their braves. The final
act comes when a Sue shaman arrives on the scene.

(09:29):
Crawling on all fours and snorting like a grizzly. With
his own teeth, he tears mouthfuls of flesh from the
body of a dead Ree. By midmorning, the Rees signal
their desire to parlay. Colonel Leavenworth jumps at the opportunity,

(09:49):
fearing they will have no more opportunities kill Rees. The
Sioux were angry when the calumet is passed around, Sue
refused to partake smoke the peace with the Rees. No way.
The Sioux leave for parts unknown. Girdel Leavenworth and the
officers of the mountain Man Company, including Tom Fitzpatrick, smoke

(10:11):
the calumet with the Rees. The negotiations proceed rapidly. The
Rees simply agree to all of love and worst demands.
Fitzpatrick and his fellow mountain Men suspect the Rees are
agreeing too quickly. What’s their game? During the night, the
Rees slip out of their village and disappear. It becomes

(10:33):
clear to Tom Fitzpatrick the Indian warriors of the high
Planes only respect power and force, and if they can
take advantage of any people they perceive to be weaker,
they do. Moreover, there’s no red brotherhood. Each tribe is
fiercely independent, and while a few are allied in one

(10:53):
manner or another, most are enemies of each other. Fitzpatrick
understands each tribe must be dealt with individually. Fitzpatrick’s second
Season or Trapping eighteen twenty three and eighteen twenty four
brings a discovery that affects the course of the American nation.

(11:16):
In March eighteen twenty four, Fitzpatrick is leaving a trapping
party when he makes the effective discovery of South Pass
in the Rockies. Here again as Miles dungan in.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
South Pass is very very important because it’s this gently
sloping corridor that rises from the Wyoming Plateau and splits
the Rocky Mountains, and in eighteen forty seven, when western
migration was well underway and South Pass was invaluable to
travelers going from the east on the Oregon Trail. He

(11:51):
also then subsequently acted as a guide to many of
those wagon trains.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
After Fitzpatrick’s discovery, the pass will be used by Mark
Whitmen and Hednri Spaulding, the first missionaries to the Pacific
Northwest and by the pioneers on the Oregon Trail. The
pass will be used by those headed to California and
the Gold Rush. The pass will be used by the
Pony Express and by the first transcontinental telegraph line, which

(12:21):
causes the demise of the Pony Express. Thirtee for Fitzpatrick
and the other mountain men as well established by eighteen
twenty four. Because of heavy snows, the men are occasionally
hold up for several months during a winter camp. Surprisingly,
there are books to read by firelight, and men who

(12:41):
recite poetry and share their knowledge of literature, history, geography,
and science. Fitzpatrick is a favorite these winter camps. Is
highly literate and knows the Bible in Shakespeare’s Walm. Men
learn so much while hold up that the winter camps
are called the Rocky Mountain College. In eighteen thirty, Fitzpatrick

(13:06):
and Jim Bridger and several others by the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company from Jed Smith, Dave Jackson, and Bill Sublet.
Fitzpatrick is named president. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company is
the only fur company actually owned and operated by mountain
men themselves.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company faced a lot of opposition
from the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada, but more particularly
from John jacob Astors American Fur Company in the early
nineteen thirties, and by that stage there was realistically more
money to be made from supplying the mountain men than

(13:48):
there was from actually trapping for fur itself.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Fitzpatrick and his Rocky Mountain Fur Company have a particular
fall hunt during eighteen thirty in the day intererous Three
Forks Country in Montana. There is dangerous because it is
full of Blackfeet, and the Blackfeet love taking American scalps.
The Blackfeet are allied with British fur companies in Canada,

(14:16):
and the British pay and supply the Blackfeet with guns
to keep American mountain men out of the beaver Rige
Three Forks Country. Many an American dies at the hands
of the Blackfeet. After winter camp, Fitzpatrick heads to Missouri
in the spring of eighteen thirty one. The buy supplies

(14:37):
to take to the summer rendezvous. The summer rendezvous for
eighteen thirty one will be in Cash Valley, Utah. However,
by the time Fitzpatrick reaches Missouri, he finds the traders
he has contracted with have already left in a trade
caravan bound for Santa Fe, New Mexico. After several days

(14:57):
of hard writing, he catches up with the caravan. The
traders tell him he will get his supplies for the Renezvous,
but only if he helps Jedediah Smith, his old mountain
man buddy, lead the caravan to Santa Fe. Fitzpatrick agrees,
and each day he and Smith scout ahead for river

(15:18):
crossing camp sites, waterholes, in Indian dangers. In the dreaded
Cimarron Desert in southwestern Kansas, Fitzpatrick and Smith find normally
wet water holes dry. They decide that Fitzpatrick will dig
at one of the waterholes while Smith scouts ahead for
another one. Smith finds the next waterhole full, but too late.

(15:43):
He realizes that Comanche are lying in wait, not for him,
but for Buffalo. For the Comanche, Smith will do just fine.
The mountain man gets off one shot, a shot that
kills the chief of the party. Before the commanche riddles
Smith with bullets and run him through with lances. One

(16:06):
of Fitzpatrick’s best friends and a legendary mount man, is gone.
Don Fitzpatrick’s closest brush with death comes three years later,
when a band of Blackfeet warriors spot him all alone
crossing a clearing in southwestern Montana. They whoop and give chase,

(16:28):
intent on taking the mountain man’s scalp. Fitzpatrick’s fleet horses
keeping ahead of the pursuing Blackfeet, but Fitzpatrick is forced
to stop when he comes to a forty foot high
bluff overlooking the Yellowstone River. It’s either attempt to fight
off several dozen Blackfeet warriors or leap his horse off

(16:50):
the bluff. Off the bluff goes horse and rider.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
And you’ve been listening to doctor Roger McGrath and allso
so to Miles Dungan tell the story of Tom Fitzpatrick.
And it’s when he heads west and discovers the South
Pass that America has changed and changed forever, that pass
that splits.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
The Rocky Mountains.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Missionaries would use it, gold Seekers would use it, so
too would almost everybody else.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Getting to the Pacific.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
We start to learn about this Rocky Mountain fur company,
the only fur company run by mountain men themselves, and
all of the dangers inherent in doing this, and all
the territorial battles, and of course you’re dealing not only
with the British and other Indian tribes, but with very
wealthy Easterners as well.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Funding it all.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
When we come back more of the remarkable story of
legendary mountain man Tom Fitzpatrick. Here on our American stories,

(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of mountain Man Tom Fitzpatrick.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Off the bluff goes horse and rider. They crash into
the water forty feet below, and Fitzpatrick’s rifle accidentally discharges
an errand bullet goes through Fitzpatrick’s left wrist and hand.
Fighting strong currents, Fitzpatrick makes it to the opposite shore

(18:38):
and disappears into the woods. The Blackfeet are not about
to quit, though, They find a crossing downstream, and the
pursuit continues. At one point, Fitzpatrick kills two of us pursuers,
and eventually the others lose his trail. Because Fitzpatrick’s hand
will remain disfigured for life, Indians begin calling him Broken Hand.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Here’s Miles In the mid eighteen thirties, After a few years,
Fitzpatrick saw the writing on the wall, and he oversaw
the sale of the Rocky Mountain for a company, to
the arch rivals, to the American for a company, And
at that point anyway, the entire trade was not long
for this world, because the silk cat was already proving

(19:24):
more popular with gentlemen than the beaver for hatt, and
that the far East was outstripping the Wild West and
bringing an end to that first major phase of Western development.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Fitzpatrick’s life as beaver trapper and fur trader is over,
but he remains in Greek demand. There’s a Scout and
the Guide. In eighteen forty one, he guides the first
pioneer settlers to Oregon in California, and first Catholic missionaries
to the Pacific Northwest. The pioneers are members of the

(19:59):
Burtleson Bidwell Party. Bidwell later writes that without Fitzpatrick, not
one of us would ever have reached California.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
In eighteen forty three, Fitzpatrick then comes to the attention
of the famous Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and Benton
recommends Fitzpatrick crucially to his son in law. You may
have heard of the son andlaw, John C. Fremont, and
Fitzpatrick becomes a guide for Fremont on his second Western expedition,

(20:32):
and he also then subsequently scouts for the US Army
prior to the Mexican American War and during the Mexican
American War, and he guides the troops led by Stephen
Watts Carney.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
At one point Fitzpatrick carrieses secret dispatches for Carney from
New Mexico to Washington, d C. Fremont, Carney just met,
and a number of other prominent figures in the West
are effusive in their praise of Fitzpatrick. So to our
Indian chiefs. Recognizing this, Congress appoints Fitzpatrick late in eighteen

(21:08):
forty six as an Indian agent for the tribes of
the High Plains.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Fitzpatrick’s most valuable contribution to Western history was his period
spent as an Indian agent. This comes again at the
behest of Thomas Hart Benton, and at the behest of Benton,
an agency in Indian Agency, massive agency covering a huge
swathe of the American West, was to be established for

(21:33):
the Upper Arkansas and Platte region, So it covers thousands
of square miles from New Mexico to Wyoming and beyond.
He was from most of his life, he was a
bachelor and decides to get married at the age of
fifty and he marries into the Arapaho nation September and

(21:54):
November eighteen forty nine. His wife’s Christian name was Margaret,
and she was probably only in her late teens at
the time of their marriage. And their marriage their union
produced two children, a boy, Andrew and a girl, Virginia.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
As Indian Agent, Fitzpatrick advises the US Army on the
construction of forts and trails and holds regular councils for
the various tribes. He also negotiates one of the most
famous Indian treaties of all time, the Treaty of Fort Laramie.
Fitzpatrick hammers out the treaty in eighteen fifty one at

(22:34):
Horse Creek, some forty miles east of Fort Laramie, where
grazing is bitter for the thousands of Indian horses. Almost
every tribe of the High Plains is represented at the negotiations,
making the gathering at Horse Creek the greatest assembly of
Indians in Western history. More than twelve thousand Indians are there.

(23:00):
Some now broken in is able to maintain peace among
the various Indian tribes, although most of them are traditional enemies.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
So there’s this huge council begins on the eighth of September,
and the native tribes were determined to outdo the whites
and each other in display. Ceremonial robes or worn faces
are elaborately painted, and so on and so forth. And
the message at this treaty the Street and negotiations for

(23:31):
the federal government was that the days of the Buffalo
are numbered, emigrants are violating tribal land, and to avoid
full scale warfare, the federal government has to be prepared
and is prepared to compensate the Plains Indians, but physical
boundaries have to be drawn on a map, and the
tribes must contain themselves within those boundaries.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
The first issue has quickly agreed upon. The Indians will
not interfere with white migration across the Plains in return
for annuities in the form of food and goods. The
second issue proves much more difficult. The idea of recognizing
and accepting tribal boundaries is foreign to the Indian. Traditional

(24:14):
enemies such as the Crow and the Sioux, refuse to
recognize each other’s right to exist anywhere on planet Earth.
Although it took many days of difficult and delicate negotiations,
somehow broken In is able to get general tribal areas
agreed upon.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
The treaty has implications to this day. The Sioux that
Dakota were given the Black Hills of the state of Dakota,
and they still have a valid claim to that sacred area,
and they still insist upon that valid claim. One of
his final reports was written in November eighteen fifty three,
and he’s direct and he’s opinionated as usual, which probably
didn’t make him very popular. He condemned the development of

(24:56):
what would become the reservation policy. He wrote, if panned
up in small secluded colonies, they become hospital wards of
colera and smallpox and must be supported at an immense
annual cost to the government. If no alteration is effected
in their present state, the future has only starvation in
store for them. And his solution was a radical one,

(25:17):
which was the assimilation of the white and the nasive races.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
At the dime, Fitzpatrick hammers out the treaty. He’s fifty
two years old. He is described as being of about
medium height, of somewhat slender frame, the well knit and muscular, alert, active,
keen sighted, and with good Irish color in his cheeks.

(25:45):
At the age of fifty five, after surviving Indian battles,
grizzly attacks, or aging rivers in mountain blizzards, Fitzpatrick catches
a coal while in Washington, d C. To discover us
an Indian treaty and dies of pneumonia. The nation honors

(26:06):
him by burying him in the Congressional Cemetery, making him
the only mountain man to be so honored.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
doctor Roger McGrath. As always, also a special thanks to
Miles Dungan. Miles lives in Dublin, Ireland and is an
historian specializing in nineteenth century Irish history and the American
West and what an Irish American story Tom Fitzpatrick’s was

(26:44):
and still is.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
It lives on.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
He sells the Rocky Mountain Fur Company just in the
nick of time, and then spends the rest of his
life as his scout and guide, and my goodness, who
he scouts and guides for? And on behalf of legends
are made of such scouting even helping the US military
in the Mexican American War. And of course this remarkable

(27:08):
marriage to an Arapaho woman that produces two children, the
story of Tom Fitzpatrick.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Here on our American Stories.