About Two Years Ago, Not Long After My Return From A Tour Upon
The Prairies Of The Far West, I Had A Conversation With My
Friend, Mr. John Jacob Astor, Relative To That Portion Of Our
Country, And To The Adventurous Traders To Santa Fe And The
Columbia.
This led him to advert to a great enterprise set on
foot and conducted by him, between twenty and thirty years since,
having for its object to carry the fur trade across the Rocky
Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the Pacific.
Finding that I took an interest in the subject, he expressed a
regret that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its
national character and importance had never been understood, and
a wish that I would undertake to give an account of it. The
suggestion struck upon the chord of early associations already
vibrating in my mind. It occurred to me that a work of this kind
might comprise a variety of those curious details, so interesting
to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its remote and
adventurous enterprises, and of the various people, and tribes,
and castes, and characters, civilized and savage, affected by its
operations. The journals, and letters, also, of the adventurers
by sea and land employed by Mr. Astor in his comprehensive
project, might throw light upon portions of our country quite out
of the track of ordinary travel, and as yet but little known. I
therefore felt disposed to undertake the task, provided documents
of sufficient extent and minuteness could be furnished to me.
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