THE story of fur is as old as the story of man. Some brief account of ancient man’s quest for fur is included in the beginning of this book. However, the main narrative is concerned with the rivalry for pelts in early America.
The discoverers of our country came here looking for gold. They found it in fur. After that the fur trade formed the pattern of exploration, trade and settlement. It sustained the colonies along the Atlantic seaboard until they could be rooted in agriculture and it was a controlling factor in the westward movement of our population.
In the seventeenth century there was a seemingly insatiable demand in Europe for beaver pelts, inflated in no small degree by early laws prohibiting the use of cheaper furs in hat making. Since there was an apparently inexhaustible supply of these pelts in America, the fur trade quickly became the economic lifeblood of the colonies. On it was laid the cornerstone of American commerce.
On it, too, was laid the cornerstone of European imperialism on this continent, the prosecution of which was largely motivated by the energies of the mercantile classes of the nations involved. The merchants, their factors, and the fur traders, shaped colonial policies. The statesmen only signed the implementing documents.
It was the trader in quest of beaver who first met and conducted diplomatic relations with the Indians and who first challenged the claims of competing nations. Indeed, it was this fur trader in the wilderness, making allies and building palisaded trading posts, or forts, who determined colonial borders and who largely influenced the outcome of the imperialistic struggle for the continent.
That struggle culminated in the French and Indian War and that is the event which ends the story in this book. Pelts and Palisades does not pretend to be a comprehensive study of the early American fur trade. Its only intent is to illustrate in narrative form the significant effect of that trade on the genesis of America and the westward movement of its people.
Included in the narrative are frank accounts of merchants and traders among our founding fathers who built their fortunes or their reputations on fur. As all the men who were prominent in this activity could not be named, only meaningful case histories that point up the pattern of the early fur trade have been cited. Fortunately, there are local histories, county and state, that do name most of these truly pioneer Americans and credit them with their individual accomplishments.
The era of the early fur trade, typified by the white trader and the Indian hunter, began drawing to a close after the French and Indian War. The white trader then became the trapper and a whole new conception of the fur trade in America developed as the frontier rolled across the plains and on to the Rocky Mountains. Today we may be on the threshold of still another era, that of the fur farmer.
In any case the fur industry continues to be big business in this country, total activity at all levels—raw furs, dressing and dyeing, and retail sales—being estimated at about one billion dollars. After exporting some twenty million dollars worth of domestic pelts, the United States annually consumes around two hundred million dollars worth of raw furs altogether—this, according to a recent bulletin of the Department of Commerce. About fifty percent of this consumption is imported.
Our imports are chiefly Persian lamb and caracul, mink, rabbit and squirrel. While the fur farms of this country produce great quantities of mink, fox, chinchilla and nutria, our principal domestic production of wild furs consists of muskrat, opossum, raccoon and mink. All other wild furs including “King Beaver” of colonial times run far behind this field.
Curiously enough, the lowly, unwanted muskrat of the seventeenth century is now the “King” of the wild furs. Its main domicile is the State of Louisiana. Because of the muskrat’s residence there Louisiana produces many more pelts, all fur-bearing animals included, than any other state in the union. Southern Louisiana is in fact one of the most important fur producing areas on our continent. In that section alone there are approximately twenty thousand local trappers of muskrat, mink, otter and raccoon.
Altogether there are two million full or part-time trappers in the United States, bringing in about twenty million pelts a year. There are also some twenty thousand or more fur farms contributing several million pelts annually, although fur farming had its inception in this country not much more than thirty-five years ago. Additionally, there are the raw fur imports. To transform all these pelts into dressed and dyed furs and retail them to milady calls for the services of thousands of additional people at manufacturing, jobbing and dealer levels.
Even as in ancient times such a great outpouring of commercial energy and money for fur is mainly decreed by fashion. The arbiters of fashion are fickle of course, but at a recent showing of designer collections for women in New York it was said that fur and fur trimmings were everywhere, with mink currently in most popular favor. As one newspaper correspondent reported, hats were made of fur or trimmed with it; coats were collared, cuffed, bordered or lined with it; suits wore wide fur collars and revers; and evening gowns had deep hemline borders of fur. And not so long ago in the New York Times appeared a full page advertisement for a chair upholstered in fur, “the world’s most sumptuous hostess chair ... lavished with the enchanting elegance of genuine mink!”
The author wishes to acknowledge the many kindnesses of those who have been helpful to him. He is much indebted to the staffs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. He is also indebted to members of the General Society of Colonial Wars, the Netherlands Society, the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania and the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia who have assisted him in many ways. From papers he has delivered before these groups has come much of the material used in this book. The author is also very grateful to Professor Arthur Adams of Boston, Massachusetts for his criticism and advice.
A bibliography of the works consulted in the preparation of the manuscript is appended, special acknowledgement being due to Doctor Amandus Johnson of Philadelphia for his published documentations of the Swedish fur trade in the Delaware valley.
And, to his wife, Eliska, the writer of this book is very thankful for her patient understanding during the many week ends that he spent on the manuscript.
NATHANIEL C. HALE
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1959.