Robert Stuart

Robert Stuart (February 19, 1785 – October 28, 1848) was a Scottish-born, Canadian and American fur trader, best known as a member of the first European-American party to cross South Pass during an overland expedition from Fort Astoria to Saint Louis in 1811. He was a member of the North West Company (NWC) until recruited by John Jacob Astor to develop the new Pacific Fur Company, which was based at Fort Astoria, on the coast of present-day Oregon. Astor intended the venture to develop a continent-wide commercial empire in fur trading. Life Family history states that Robert Stuart was born in Strathyre, in the historic parish of Balquhidder, but grew up in Callander, both towns in Perthshire, about northwest of Stirling, Scotland. Around 1807, he joined an uncle, David Stuart, in Montreal to work as a clerk in the fur trade for the Canadian North West Company. In 1810, three years later, he and his uncle had been recruited into Astor's Pacific Fur Company. Stuart was age 25 when he sailed aboard a Pacific Fur Company ship, the Tonquin, on its voyage to the Falkland Islands. He held a pistol to the head of the ship's captain, Jonathan Thorn, when Thorn attempted to leave the Falkland Islands without Stuart's uncle David, another of Astor's partners. They sailed around Cape Horn and up the West coast of North America to the Columbia River. The Tonquin crossed the Columbia Bar and established Fort Astoria (located in modern Astoria, Oregon) in May 1811. After leaving supplies and traders at the newly created outpost, the ship and crew traveled north to Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. The Tonquin crew engaged in commercial negotiations with members of the Tla-o-qui-aht nation in June. An altercation arose, with the entire crew killed except a single hired translator and the ship destroyed. After the incident, the traders had to make arrangements to communicate with Astor, since they had no idea when a ship might call at Fort Astoria. Thus, Stuart accompanied an overland expedition of seven men carrying word of the Tonquin's fate to St. Louis. A larger party ascended the Columbia River as far as it could, procuring horses from Indians as they got further inland.