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Article construction ideas Summary (done last) Phases in Kipp’s life, with general activities, then lists. Then catagories, marriages, host, building, etc.

-- nOTES ON DATES IN THE FUR TRADE FROM WOODS ARTICLE 1812 – returned to Kingston Ontario, became forman of carpetners in Engineer Department at Kingston.

1818 – wife died after illness of three years. 1821 – For Douglas – modern Winnipeg – on red River, merger of Hudson Bar and North West left large numbers of experienced traders out of work. 1822-1827 Columbia Fur Company, aka Tilton and Company. Trusted assistant of McKenzie .Assigned to revive trade with Mandans. 1821- 1822 Mandans living in two villages near mouth of Knife River. built Tilton’s Fort Just downstream from Mih-tuttta-hang-kusch, Mandan village from May to October of 1832. First fort built. . ARikara problem./  Abandoned in 1824. Hugh Glass visited while on his quest for revenge. Built Fort Clark I beside the village 1824, using timers from Fort Tilton,. Nov. 1826 Sent upriver to erect Assiniboine post at mouth of White Earth River, known as Kipp’s Post, also known as Fort Floyd, and predecessor to fort Union, built in 1829 aftr which Fort Floyd was burned in 1829 or 1830. Kipp started construction but went downriver because ill in 1827. July 27 1827 Columbia Fur Company merged with American Fur Company and continued operations as the Upper Missouri Outfit. Spring 1828 Kipp returned to Fort Tecumseh, opposite Pierre SD 1830 Prince Paul of Wurtemberg – guest of Kipp at Fort Clark I. Wood 7 1831 completed second Fort Clark. Prince Maximillian and Artist Bodmer there. Wood 7 August 1831 – directed to open trade with the Blackfood Indians, at build first post established for blackfoot, to compete with Hudson Bay. Before post, Blackfeet had to travel to Hudson’s Bay Rocky Mountain House, or to Fort Edmonton. Water low, got to site of fort only in October, but erected Fort Piegan after arrival in 70 days. 110 feet square. Trade successful, used liquor. Next Spring took “winter’s gains” downriver, forced to take entire creew, for the half that were to remain behind feard to be left in remote location. Abandoned post burned soon after left, and never rebuilt. 1832 – at Fort Clark June. Artist Catlin there. 1833 – At Fort Clark, Prince Maximillian of Weid and Artist Karl Bodmer and David Dreidoppel spent winter at Fort Clark. Mandan wife. 1834 – Guests leave. 1835 – kip goes back to home in Canada, in Montreal area. 1836 – gristmill, lumber mill (preparation of lumber, planning etc) in St. Louis. 1837 – small pox epidemic – did Kipp’s Indian family die? Son Samuel remained close to him and lived at his house. 1839 Marries Mary Bloodgood. 1839 – Goes up river on steamboat Antelope, with other members of Upper Missouri Outfit. Also on board was John C. Fremond. French scientist Joseph N. Nicollet. Father Pierre-Jean De Smet jointed party at Council Bluffs. 1841 DeSmet’s journal mentions Kipp as the administrator at Fort Union.

1840 to 1849 Kipp took fleet – flotilla -- of keelboats or Mackinaws downriver carrying the seasons returns from the trade. He spent the summer with his wife and was back at Fort Unon in the fall.

1842 – becomes citizen. Two months later purchases a farm in uplands north of Kansas City Missouri. 1843, saw flotilla off, then went to Fort Alexander on the Yellowsstone to trade with the Crow Indians. 1843 – Audubon mentioned meeting Kipp’s spring flotilla. 1826 Kipp was in charge of pack trains to the Upper Missouri (water to low to go up by boat) Began at Independence though some origionated at Independence. 1845 – Hidatsas and Mandans move their village from the mouth of Knife River to a point opposite Dancing Bear Creek, where they built “Like a Fishook” village. Upper Missouri River Outfit built aA fort named Fort Berthold built next to their village. 1847 Irish adventurer John Palliser. Went by steamer to Independence to go overland with kipp. Diary notes overland journey of 1500 to 1600 miles, done 20 times in so many yea, returning down the river with flotilla of boats every summer. Pack train left the first of September. Trip actually was 2000 miles. Journey took 8 weeks arriving end of October. 1847 Kipp took Earth Woman a Moanda as a country wife. Heard wives coming up river. May 1847 Kipp goes down to Missouri for health reasons. 1846- 1847 Larpenteur notes Kipp in charge, not happy Larpenter left Ft. Benton on Missouri. 1848 Kipp given a share in the profits. 1849 Kipp considered as Culbertson’s replacement, but determined he was “to good a man” to be in charge of the post. 1850 -1859 1850 – in charge of Fort Berthold. Culbertson says in neat and clean looks, in good order. Took Company steamer to St. Louis. Returned quickly so Kipp could take charge of Fort Berthold. Nephew got sick on return and died at Fort Pierre. 1850 – Artist Rudolph Kurz recorded Kipp’s activiites at Fort berthold. Kurz says Kipp has lost a fortune because of drink.

1853 – Kipp downriver on steamer – reports adverture and near death in a snowstorm. 1851 – Company dispensing annuities from 1851 treaty of Fort Laramie. 1856 – Charles Chouteau’s son founded Academy of Science at St. Louise – James Kipp a member for his ethnographic knowledge of the region and contributions to the Mandan vocabulary. 1857 – Small pox epidemic – brought up river with steamboat. 1859 – small post Fort Kipp at present day Culbertson. Abandoned after one year, and burned by the Indians. 1859 retired because of age. Went downstream to attend wedding of Alexander Culbertson who married his long time Balckfoot Indian country wife. 1860’s – Joseph visits farm of father, is asked not to speak of Earth woman. After retirement. No record Kipp sent money to Earth Woman or Joseph. He did not abandon them. jRemained in contact with them and visited them in the summer. Kipp made numerous visits to the Upper Missouri, and visited his wife and son. 1876, visited his friends the mandans, spending the summer and autumn in Like a Fishoook village. 1878 – could no longer travel, sent a letter. 1860’s – Civil war – no record of involvement in conflict. Though Missouri seethed with Guerilla war. 1870’s remembered as a relic of the old says, called a “boatman”. July 2, 1880 Death – rode, like horses, His wife had died. He left his property in equal parts to son Joseph Kipp and daughter Margaret Weagent of Montreal and July Kipp Campbell, daughter of deceased son Samuiel.

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Marriages 1.	 Kip, 24, married Elizabeth Rocheleau, in Kingston, (Canada) June 23, 1813. Three children Mary Ann, Louise charlotte, Margaret. Louise and Margaret married men named Weagent; only Margaret survived Kipp’s death. Elizabeth died on October 15, 1818 after an illness of three years, aged 24 years. Wood p. 4. left children with wife, Mary. Wood, p. 5. Saw daughters when returned in 1835 for vacation. Wood, p. 10 2.	Mandan wife 1832, hosted Catlin, who painted wife’s portrait, which Kipp bought to destroy. Wood, p. 9. Had a son, age 2 and a daughter, 1834. Wife lived at Mih-tutta-hang-kusch. Do not know date of marriage, or her name of name of children. Not know what became of them, no mention after Maximilian’s departure. Wood 9. Perhaps perished in smallpox epidemic of 1837. Daughter mentioned once in passing in 1859. Wood p. 9. Son was Samuel, birthdate 1832, died at father’s farm in Missouri in January 1861. 3.     February 2, 1839, Kipp, age 51, married 52 year old Mary Bloodgood. In 1844, purchased quarter section. 160 acres in Kansas with wife. Wood, p. 11. Wife stayed at home on farm, did not go upriver with husband. Wood p. 12. While having another “country wife” Kipp would visit his wife in Kansas (Missouri?). Wife called Mary. Wood, p. 18. Joseph son of Earth Woman comes to visit father, and finds he has another wife, and agrees to keep it secret (1860’s?) Wood, p. 21. 4.	Kipp taken Indian wife, a Mandan, in 1845 approx. Termed a “country wife” known as Earth Woman. Wood, p. 15. Met her when a bourgeoise at Fort Berthold. Only known child Joseph Kipp, bor there on 11/29/49 when Earth Woman was 31 years old. While living in Missouri with wife Mary, he went to visit Indian wife and son in Montana often. Known for extaordinary kindness. Died Dec. 14, 1910, age age 92. Name on gravestone is Mary Kipp, an English name taken when government rations were being given out. "Curiously enough, Mary ws the name of James Kipp's wife in Missouri.

Language skills First wife, fluent in Mandan Language, Wood, p. 9.

Hosted George Catlin, Fort Clark, 1832 Wood, p. 8 Prince Maximilan, Karl Bodmer, David Dreidoppel 1833,  Wood P,. 8

Carpentry background. In his first wife’s obituary in 1815, Kipp was listed as a “Master Carpenter”. In In a Missouri Federal Census of June 1880 James was listed his occupation as a carpeter. Wood p. 4.

Built five trading posts and assisted in or directed the construction of two others. Carpentry background -- He built five trading posts for the Columbia and American Fur Companies. Wood p. 4,5, which are Tilton’s Fort, Fort Clark I, Fort Floyd, Fort Clark, and Fort Piegan. Wood, 5, and he assisted in (or actually built) Fort Bethold, and perhaps also Fort Un

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NOTE: This is from find a grave, and is thus unreliable.

James Kipp, a famous fur trader, was born on Friday, March 15, 1788 in Canada, and although he is called Captain on his gravestone, he was never a steamboat captain, Rather, he shepherded fleets of boats down the Missouri carrying the spring haul of furs to markets in St. Louis.

1st Wife Elizabeth ROCHELEAU b: Jan 1794 d: 15 Oct 1818 2nd Wife Mary Bloodgood b: 1814 d: 1860's 3rd Wife Earth Woman Indian Wife 4th Wife Indian Wife

From: a full biography of him to be published in NORTH DAKOTA HISTORY, Vol. 76, Nos. 3-4, 3011, by W. Raymond Wood

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Site of 40 page article on James Kipp title: James Kipp: Upper mi8ssouri River Fur Trader and Missouri Farmer, author: W. Raymond Wood Source: North Dakota History, Journal of the Northern Plains, Vol 77, Nos. 1&2, page 2-35 http://www.academia.edu/4582853/James_Kipp_Upper_Missouri_River_Fur_Trader_and_Missouri_Farmer Date: 2011 (? this date from a note of a review of the article by the ND State Historical Society)

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Site: Mountain Men and Life in the Rocky Mountain West Malachite’s Big Hole http://www.mman.us/kippjames.htm James Kipp:

James Kipp was born in 1788 near Montreal Canada. Little is known of his early years. By the time he was twenty, he had entered the fur trade in the Red River region, probably working for the North West Company, and by 1818 he was working in the Upper Missouri River region.

On March 21st, 1821, the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company. As a result of the merger, large numbers of experienced traders were thrown out of work. A number of these men came together to form a new fur trading company, organized as Tilton and Company, but more generally known as the Columbia Fur Company. Kenneth McKenzie was the leading figure in the new company but other experienced members included James Kipp, Joseph Renville, William Laidlaw, and Honoré Picotte.

In 1823 Kipp went to the Mandan villages on the Missouri River where he commenced construction of a fort. Kipp and six other men were stationed at the fort after completion. The situation at the fort became extremely dangerous in late August-September of 1823 when large numbers of angry Arikara Indians moved into the vicinity after being displaced from their own villages following the Leavenworth campaign. The following year conditions improved when the Arikara Indians moved back down river. Tilton took charge of the Mandan fort in November of 1826 and Kipp moved on up the river to the mouth of the White Earth River where he built another post.

In June of 1827 the Columbia Fur Company merged with the American Fur Company and it was renamed the Upper Missouri Outfit. Kipp continued on with the Upper Missouri Outfit and in 1828 the company tasked him with constructing Fort Floyd, later known as Fort Union. Kipp remained at Fort Union till 1831 when he built Fort Clark near the Mandan villages. In the winter of 1831-1832 he constructed Fort Piegan near the confluence of the Marias and Missouri Rivers.

Kipp served as factor at a number of posts for relatively brief periods of time. He was also responsibly for bringing furs and skins down river by barge and mackinaw boat to St. Louis.

According to Rudolph Kurz Kipp had both a white family located at Independence, Missouri and a Mandan woman and family. Kurz spent several months in 1851 at Fort Berthold while Kipp was bourgeois and provides numerous descriptions of Kipp and his interactions with him (Reference).

Kipp remained active in the Indian trade until he retired to his Missouri farm in 1865. After retirement he continued to make periodic visits to see his friends at Fort Benton.

James Kipp died July 2, 1880 at the age of 92.

For more information regarding James Kipp see:

The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. II, edited by LeRoy R Hafen, published 1965 by the Arthur H Clark Company.

Kurz, Rudolph Freiderich. The Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz: translated by Myrtis Jarrell; published by the University of Nebraska Press 1970. Descriptions of the man by Kurz during July and August of 1851.

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https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ndnewsfeed/qwFq_sS2izgFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2011

Contact: Kathy Davison or Bonnie Johnson

(701) 328-4725 or 328-2093

Attached is a low-resolution JPEG showing the cover of the new issue of North Dakota History. If you would like a high-resolution version for publication use, contact Communications and Education Director Rick Collin at (701) 328-1476 or email at rcollin@nd.gov.

LEGENDARY FUR TRADER JAMES KIPP, FORT CLARK TRADING POST SITE FEATURED IN NEW ISSUE OF NORTH DAKOTA HISTORY

BISMARCK -- The latest edition of North Dakota History focuses on one of the most important fur traders on the Northern Plains: James Kipp. A prominent member of two 19th Century fur trading companies, Kipp’s story has not been fully explored until this issue of North Dakota History, written by the eminent scholar W. Raymond Wood, who has spent his professional life studying the archaeology and history of the central and northern Plains. A brief accompanying article, “From the Sites: Fort Clark State Historic Site” details the Mandan, and later Arikara, village Mih-tutta-hang-kusch and neighboring trading posts Fort Clark and Primeau’s Post.

North Dakota History is the quarterly journal published since 1926 by the state’s history agency, the State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND).

Kipp’s trading career on the Missouri River spans almost the entire history of the trade – from 1822 to 1859. Wood’s article, “James Kipp: Upper Missouri Fur Trader and Missouri River Farmer,” discusses the long life of the Canadian-born carpenter, trader, and businessman. He is credited with designing or building most of the American Fur Company’s trading posts, including Fort Clark, Fort Union, and Fort Berthold in today’s North Dakota. His assistance to artists and scientists like George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Prince Maximilian, and others was invaluable and helped to create one of the most complete contemporary records of the encounter of Indian nations with the advancing Euro-American culture.

James Kipp was born into a family of Loyalists who, after the Revolutionary War, fled New York for Nova Scotia, and then Quebec. Before he was 20, Kipp was employed by the North West Company on the Red River just south of the Canadian border. When the War of 1812 began, he returned to Canada, became a carpenter, and married; after his wife’s death in 1821, Kipp left his daughters with his mother and headed back west to resume his career as a fur trader, soon joining the Columbia Fur Company on the Missouri River.

One of Kipp’s first assignments was to revive the trade with the Mandans, and by the spring of 1823, Kipp was constructing a post on the Missouri River near the mouth of the Knife River, just downstream from the Mandan village of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch. That first fort was soon replaced with another fort closer to the village. In 1827, after the Columbia Fur Company merged with the American Fur Company, Kipp joined the new organization, and within a few years, built a third post, known as Fort Clark, beside the village. Married to a Mandan woman and fluent in the Mandan language, Kipp’s knowledge of Mandan customs and language was invaluable to the artist George Catlin, who spent a considerable amount of time at Fort Clark as Kipp’s guest in 1832. Kipp also was instrumental in Catlin’s being allowed to view the four-day Mandan Okipa and other ceremonies. When Prince Maximilian and the artist Karl Bodmer arrived the next year, they also were housed with Kipp, his wife, and their two-year-old son. Without Kipp’s assistance Maximilian would not have been able to prepare his detailed reports of the life of the Mandan people. Kipp probably met every significant historical figure that traveled on the Missouri during the course of his long career. Besides Maximilian, Bodmer, Catlin, and Schoolcraft, he also knew French scientist Joseph Nicollet, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, and almost everyone involved in one way or another with the fur trade in the West. Many relatives, including three nephews, were also involved in the trade.

In 1839, at age 51, Kipp also entered a downstream marriage, to 25-year-old Mary Bloodgood in Missouri. A few years later he bought a farm north of Kansas City, near the current site of the Kansas City International Airport, and Mary stayed home to take care of the farm while Kipp was on the Upper Missouri. In the fall, Kipp usually led a pack train some 2,000 miles up the river, carrying European and American goods to trade with the Native people of the Upper Missouri. In the spring he would lead trips down the Missouri River to St. Louis with a fleet of keelboats or Mackinaws loaded with furs. He continued this pattern well into his 60s.

In the 1840s, when the Hidatsa and Mandan people, hard-hit by a series of smallpox and other epidemics, settled in the new village of Like-a-Fishhook, Kipp and Frances Chardon followed, building the new post of Fort Berthold, where Kipp acted as bourgeois, or director, for most of his remaining years on the Upper Missouri. It was here that Kipp married another Mandan woman, Sak-we-ah-ki (Earth Woman), the daughter of Mato-Tope (Four Bears) and possibly of his favorite wife, Mink. Their only known child, Joseph Kipp, was born in 1849.

His last few years in the fur trade Kipp spent as the bourgeois at Fort Union. He retired to his farm in Missouri at the age of 71 in 1859, where the next year’s federal census records showed James and Mary Kipp, as well as Kipp’s son by his first Mandan wife, Samuel, Samuel’s wife, Mariah, and their two children living on the farm. Kipp continued to make regular visits up the Missouri River to Earth Woman, Joseph, and his old friends on the Upper Missouri River. Finally, age caught up with the old trader, and in 1878, when he could no longer travel, he ended a letter to Joseph, “Give my love to your mother and all the family. I remain affectionately, Father.” James Kipp died July 2, 1880, at the age of 92.

W. Raymond Wood is professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has spent his professional life studying the archaeology and history of the central and northern Plains. Dr. Wood is the author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books and articles, including several for North Dakota History. His latest book, Fort Clark and its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, was published this October by the University of Oklahoma Press. Also this year A White-Bearded Plainsman: The Memoirs of Archaeologist W. Raymond Wood was released, and in 2008 the State Historical Society of North Dakota published Wood’s Twilight of the Upper Missouri River Fur Trade: The Journals of Henry A. Boller.

A companion piece in the latest North Dakota History, “From the Sites: Fort Clark State Historic Site,” examines the one of the most important archaeological sites on the northern Plains, Fort Clark. James Kipp built three trading posts there, and spent much of his career with the Mandan and Arikara at the site, which is known today for its significant documentation, association with the devastating 1837 smallpox epidemic, and the multiple cultures who lived and worked there. The article was written by SHSND Assistant Editor Bonnie T. Johnson.

The Mandan village, Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, was founded in 1822 and Kipp’s trading posts near the village soon followed. Steamboats began arriving at Fort Clark in 1832, delivering trade goods to the fort and returning to St. Louis with beaver pelts and bison robes. In 1837 a steamboat also brought smallpox, documented by Fort Clark trader Francis A. Chardon in a journal he kept at the fort. By the spring of 1837 as many as 90 percent of the residents of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch were dead of smallpox, and the surviving villagers moved further upstream. The Arikaras, who had been living just downriver from Fort Clark settled into the largely empty village, and Fort Clark and its competitor, Primeau’s Post, continued in operation until the early 1860s, when the villagers moved to Like-a-Fishhook Village and the traders to Fort Berthold.

The area including Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, Fort Clark, and Primeau’s Post became Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site in 1936. Archaeologists, including W. Raymond Wood, have excavated the site since the 1960s. Combined with the extensive 30-year documentary record of visitors to Fort Clark, the recent studies help us understand the complicated history of Fort Clark and Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, and the interactions between Native, European, and Euro-American people living there. Today, interpretive trails and signs explain the era of the two competing fur trading posts as well as two different American Indian cultures, all sharing the same site in a very short span of time. The archaeological site is located between Washburn and Stanton, and is open May 16 through September 15.

An excellent teaching tool for history and other related classes, North Dakota History is available for $14.95 plus tax at local bookstores and newsstands, the North Dakota Heritage Center Museum Store in Bismarck, or by mail order. To order, write the State Historical Society of North Dakota, 612 East Boulevard Avenue, Bismarck, ND 58505, call (701) 328-2666, or e-mail histsoc@nd.gov. Add $2 to cover shipping for the first copy and 50 cents for each additional copy. For more information, contact the State Historical Society’s website at www.history.nd.gov.

Subscriptions to North Dakota History are offered as a benefit of membership in the SHSND Foundation, a private, non-profit organization which supports programs and activities of the State Historical Society. For information or to join, write to the Foundation at P.O. Box 1976, Bismarck, ND 58502, call (701) 222-1966, e-mail hstlfdn@btinet.net, or visit the Society’s website.

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James Kipp died at age 93. http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en/fo/lewistown_field_office/recreation/kipp.html 9.23.13

Noes means he died in 1881.

http://books.google.com/books?id=rSwXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=%22James+Kipp%22+%22fort+piegan%22&source=bl&ots=4HEs-UrZeV&sig=dJOfcgN51zIOn3yD2AOScJYKE0A&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-r1AUovKOY_liwL57oCQDw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22James%20Kipp%22%20%22fort%20piegan%22&f=false retrieved 9.23.13

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Establishement of Ft. Piegan as told me by James Kipp.

http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/montana-history-almanac-fur-trader-abandons-fort-piegan/article_19222a8e-2e20-11df-ae63-001cc4c002e0.html Retrieved 9.23.13

March 15, 1832

James Kipp, fur trader for the American Fur Co., abandons Fort Piegan near the mouth of the Marias River.

Kipp and 75 company men built the post in October, the first in Blackfeet country above Fort Union on the Missouri River. A 25-foot palisade surrounds three large log buildings.

In its five-month life, Fort Piegan served an important role in opening trade relations with the Blackfeet. Previously, the tribe traded only with British-owned fur companies.

The Missouri River Co. twice attempted to establish posts on the Upper Missouri, in 1810 and 1821. Both were immediately shut down by hostile hosts.

By now the Blackfeet are more amenable to the Americans, and the traders have adapted their trading practices to better suit the Indians. Kipp offered greatly deflated prices and plenty of cheap whiskey. He’s taking home $46,000 worth of beaver pelts in return.

Another party of American Fur Co. trappers under David Mitchell will discover Fort Piegan burned to the ground when they arrive this summer. They’ll proceed a few miles upstream to establish Fort McKenzie, which will operate as a lucrative trading center for more than a decade.

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http://www.mman.us/fortpiegan.htm Retrieved 9.23.13

Fort Piegan:

By 1830, Kenneth McKenzie, of the Upper Missouri Outfit of the Western Department, had made friendly contacts with the Blackfoot Indians further up the Missouri River and was ready to risk a post amongst this notoriously hostile tribe. McKenzie sent Jacob Berger, a former Hudson ’s Bay Company man who had previously had contacts with the tribe for his prior employer and already spoke the Blackfoot language. In 1830 Berger and a small party traveled up the Missouri to the confluence of the Marias River where he parlayed with the Blackfeet. He was successful in convincing a group of Blackfeet to accompanied Berger back to Fort Union for a conference with McKenzie where the Indians agreed to allow an American Fur Company post within their territory.

It wasn't until August of 1831 that James Kipp accompanied by about 75 men left Fort Union to establish the Blackfoot post. The Missouri River was low this late in the season, and the men struggled to move the keelboat loaded with trade goods and supplies upriver over the sandbars. The party didn't reach the intended post site, the mouth of the Marias River, until mid October. When the exhausted men arrived at the site, they found that there were already perhaps a thousand Blackfoot Indians waiting to begin trade.

Kip realized that his men couldn't conduct trade and build a fort simultaneously. Trading would leave the party terribly exposed should the Blackfeet take offense for any reason. Kip negotiated with the Blackfoot chiefs for a 75-day period in which the trading party could ready a fortified trading post prior to initiating trade. The new post was named Fort Piegan, after one of the principal subgroups of the Blackfoot nation. The fort was constructed of cottonwood logs and is reported to have been 110 feet square with palisades 25 feet high.

The Blackfeet eagerly embraced the presence of the American Fur Company men and their trade goods, supposedly bringing in 2,400 beaver pelts, buffalo robes and other furs within the first ten days that it was open. In spite of the commercial success, the men still harbored great fear of the Blackfoot Indians. Transporting the returns back to Fort Union in the spring of 1832 required approximately one-half of the fort personal. However, no-one was willing to remain behind at the fort and so Kipp took the entire complement of men down-river with him. When the Blackfeet found that the post had been apparently abandoned, contrary to promises made by the American Fur Company, they became enraged and burned the fort to the ground.

The following year McKenzie sent David Mitchell and a party of men up river to resume trade with the Blackfeet. Finding that Fort Piegan had been destroyed, Mitchell and his men proceeded an additional six miles up river where they established Fort McKenzie.

For more information about Fort Piegan see also:

Lepley, John G., Blackfoot Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri. Published by Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula 2004.

Hart, Herbert M., Tour Guide to Old Forts of Montana, Wyoming North & South Dakota. Published by the Pruett Publishing Company, Boulder Colorado 1980.

Malone, Michael P. and Richard B Roeder, Montana: A History of Two Centuries. Published by University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1976.

On March 21st, 1821, the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company. As a result of the merger, large numbers of experienced traders were thrown out of work. A number of these men came together to form a new fur trading company, organized as Tilton and Company, but more generally known as the Columbia Fur Company. Kenneth McKenzie was the leading figure in the new company but other experienced members included James Kipp, Joseph Renville, William Laidlaw, and Honoré Picotte.

In 1823 Kipp went to the Mandan villages on the Missouri River where he commenced construction of a fort. Kipp and six other men were stationed at the fort after completion. The situation at the fort became extremely dangerous in late August-September of 1823 when large numbers of angry Arikara Indians moved into the vicinity after being displaced from their own villages following the Leavenworth campaign. The following year conditions improved when the Arikara Indians moved back down river. Tilton took charge of the Mandan fort in November of 1826 and Kipp moved on up the river to the mouth of the White Earth River where he built another post.

In June of 1827 the Columbia Fur Company merged with the American Fur Company and it was renamed the Upper Missouri Outfit. Kipp continued on with the Upper Missouri Outfit and in 1828 the company tasked him with constructing Fort Floyd, later known as Fort Union. Kipp remained at Fort Union till 1831 when he built Fort Clark near the Mandan villages. In the winter of 1831-1832 he constructed Fort Piegan near the confluence of the Marias and Missouri Rivers.

Kipp served as factor at a number of posts for relatively brief periods of time. He was also responsibly for bringing furs and skins down river by barge and mackinaw boat to St. Louis.

According to Rudolph Kurz Kipp had both a white family located at Independence, Missouri and a Mandan woman and family. Kurz spent several months in 1851 at Fort Berthold while Kipp was bourgeois and provides numerous descriptions of Kipp and his interactions with him (Reference).

Kipp remained active in the Indian trade until he retired to his Missouri farm in 1865. After retirement he continued to make periodic visits to see his friends at Fort Benton.

James Kipp died July 2, 1880 at the age of 92.

For more information regarding James Kipp see:

The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. II, edited by LeRoy R Hafen, published 1965 by the Arthur H Clark Company.

Kurz, Rudolph Freiderich. The Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz: translated by Myrtis Jarrell; published by the University of Nebraska Press 1970. Descriptions of the man by Kurz during July and August of 1851.

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https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ndnewsfeed/qwFq_sS2izgFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2011

Contact: Kathy Davison or Bonnie Johnson

(701) 328-4725 or 328-2093

Attached is a low-resolution JPEG showing the cover of the new issue of North Dakota History. If you would like a high-resolution version for publication use, contact Communications and Education Director Rick Collin at (701) 328-1476 or email at rcollin@nd.gov.

LEGENDARY FUR TRADER JAMES KIPP, FORT CLARK TRADING POST SITE FEATURED IN NEW ISSUE OF NORTH DAKOTA HISTORY

BISMARCK -- The latest edition of North Dakota History focuses on one of the most important fur traders on the Northern Plains: James Kipp. A prominent member of two 19th Century fur trading companies, Kipp’s story has not been fully explored until this issue of North Dakota History, written by the eminent scholar W. Raymond Wood, who has spent his professional life studying the archaeology and history of the central and northern Plains. A brief accompanying article, “From the Sites: Fort Clark State Historic Site” details the Mandan, and later Arikara, village Mih-tutta-hang-kusch and neighboring trading posts Fort Clark and Primeau’s Post.

North Dakota History is the quarterly journal published since 1926 by the state’s history agency, the State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND).

Kipp’s trading career on the Missouri River spans almost the entire history of the trade – from 1822 to 1859. Wood’s article, “James Kipp: Upper Missouri Fur Trader and Missouri River Farmer,” discusses the long life of the Canadian-born carpenter, trader, and businessman. He is credited with designing or building most of the American Fur Company’s trading posts, including Fort Clark, Fort Union, and Fort Berthold in today’s North Dakota. His assistance to artists and scientists like George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Prince Maximilian, and others was invaluable and helped to create one of the most complete contemporary records of the encounter of Indian nations with the advancing Euro-American culture.

James Kipp was born into a family of Loyalists who, after the Revolutionary War, fled New York for Nova Scotia, and then Quebec. Before he was 20, Kipp was employed by the North West Company on the Red River just south of the Canadian border. When the War of 1812 began, he returned to Canada, became a carpenter, and married; after his wife’s death in 1821, Kipp left his daughters with his mother and headed back west to resume his career as a fur trader, soon joining the Columbia Fur Company on the Missouri River.

One of Kipp’s first assignments was to revive the trade with the Mandans, and by the spring of 1823, Kipp was constructing a post on the Missouri River near the mouth of the Knife River, just downstream from the Mandan village of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch. That first fort was soon replaced with another fort closer to the village. In 1827, after the Columbia Fur Company merged with the American Fur Company, Kipp joined the new organization, and within a few years, built a third post, known as Fort Clark, beside the village. Married to a Mandan woman and fluent in the Mandan language, Kipp’s knowledge of Mandan customs and language was invaluable to the artist George Catlin, who spent a considerable amount of time at Fort Clark as Kipp’s guest in 1832. Kipp also was instrumental in Catlin’s being allowed to view the four-day Mandan Okipa and other ceremonies. When Prince Maximilian and the artist Karl Bodmer arrived the next year, they also were housed with Kipp, his wife, and their two-year-old son. Without Kipp’s assistance Maximilian would not have been able to prepare his detailed reports of the life of the Mandan people. Kipp probably met every significant historical figure that traveled on the Missouri during the course of his long career. Besides Maximilian, Bodmer, Catlin, and Schoolcraft, he also knew French scientist Joseph Nicollet, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, and almost everyone involved in one way or another with the fur trade in the West. Many relatives, including three nephews, were also involved in the trade.

In 1839, at age 51, Kipp also entered a downstream marriage, to 25-year-old Mary Bloodgood in Missouri. A few years later he bought a farm north of Kansas City, near the current site of the Kansas City International Airport, and Mary stayed home to take care of the farm while Kipp was on the Upper Missouri. In the fall, Kipp usually led a pack train some 2,000 miles up the river, carrying European and American goods to trade with the Native people of the Upper Missouri. In the spring he would lead trips down the Missouri River to St. Louis with a fleet of keelboats or Mackinaws loaded with furs. He continued this pattern well into his 60s.

In the 1840s, when the Hidatsa and Mandan people, hard-hit by a series of smallpox and other epidemics, settled in the new village of Like-a-Fishhook, Kipp and Frances Chardon followed, building the new post of Fort Berthold, where Kipp acted as bourgeois, or director, for most of his remaining years on the Upper Missouri. It was here that Kipp married another Mandan woman, Sak-we-ah-ki (Earth Woman), the daughter of Mato-Tope (Four Bears) and possibly of his favorite wife, Mink. Their only known child, Joseph Kipp, was born in 1849.

His last few years in the fur trade Kipp spent as the bourgeois at Fort Union. He retired to his farm in Missouri at the age of 71 in 1859, where the next year’s federal census records showed James and Mary Kipp, as well as Kipp’s son by his first Mandan wife, Samuel, Samuel’s wife, Mariah, and their two children living on the farm. Kipp continued to make regular visits up the Missouri River to Earth Woman, Joseph, and his old friends on the Upper Missouri River. Finally, age caught up with the old trader, and in 1878, when he could no longer travel, he ended a letter to Joseph, “Give my love to your mother and all the family. I remain affectionately, Father.” James Kipp died July 2, 1880, at the age of 92.

W. Raymond Wood is professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has spent his professional life studying the archaeology and history of the central and northern Plains. Dr. Wood is the author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books and articles, including several for North Dakota History. His latest book, Fort Clark and its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, was published this October by the University of Oklahoma Press. Also this year A White-Bearded Plainsman: The Memoirs of Archaeologist W. Raymond Wood was released, and in 2008 the State Historical Society of North Dakota published Wood’s Twilight of the Upper Missouri River Fur Trade: The Journals of Henry A. Boller.

A companion piece in the latest North Dakota History, “From the Sites: Fort Clark State Historic Site,” examines the one of the most important archaeological sites on the northern Plains, Fort Clark. James Kipp built three trading posts there, and spent much of his career with the Mandan and Arikara at the site, which is known today for its significant documentation, association with the devastating 1837 smallpox epidemic, and the multiple cultures who lived and worked there. The article was written by SHSND Assistant Editor Bonnie T. Johnson.

The Mandan village, Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, was founded in 1822 and Kipp’s trading posts near the village soon followed. Steamboats began arriving at Fort Clark in 1832, delivering trade goods to the fort and returning to St. Louis with beaver pelts and bison robes. In 1837 a steamboat also brought smallpox, documented by Fort Clark trader Francis A. Chardon in a journal he kept at the fort. By the spring of 1837 as many as 90 percent of the residents of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch were dead of smallpox, and the surviving villagers moved further upstream. The Arikaras, who had been living just downriver from Fort Clark settled into the largely empty village, and Fort Clark and its competitor, Primeau’s Post, continued in operation until the early 1860s, when the villagers moved to Like-a-Fishhook Village and the traders to Fort Berthold.

The area including Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, Fort Clark, and Primeau’s Post became Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site in 1936. Archaeologists, including W. Raymond Wood, have excavated the site since the 1960s. Combined with the extensive 30-year documentary record of visitors to Fort Clark, the recent studies help us understand the complicated history of Fort Clark and Mih-tutta-hang-kusch, and the interactions between Native, European, and Euro-American people living there. Today, interpretive trails and signs explain the era of the two competing fur trading posts as well as two different American Indian cultures, all sharing the same site in a very short span of time. The archaeological site is located between Washburn and Stanton, and is open May 16 through September 15.

An excellent teaching tool for history and other related classes, North Dakota History is available for $14.95 plus tax at local bookstores and newsstands, the North Dakota Heritage Center Museum Store in Bismarck, or by mail order. To order, write the State Historical Society of North Dakota, 612 East Boulevard Avenue, Bismarck, ND 58505, call (701) 328-2666, or e-mail histsoc@nd.gov. Add $2 to cover shipping for the first copy and 50 cents for each additional copy. For more information, contact the State Historical Society’s website at www.history.nd.gov.

Subscriptions to North Dakota History are offered as a benefit of membership in the SHSND Foundation, a private, non-profit organization which supports programs and activities of the State Historical Society. For information or to join, write to the Foundation at P.O. Box 1976, Bismarck, ND 58502, call (701) 222-1966, e-mail hstlfdn@btinet.net, or visit the Society’s website.

- James Kipp died at age 93. http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en/fo/lewistown_field_office/recreation/kipp.html 9.23.13

Noes means he died in 1881.

http://books.google.com/books?id=rSwXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=%22James+Kipp%22+%22fort+piegan%22&source=bl&ots=4HEs-UrZeV&sig=dJOfcgN51zIOn3yD2AOScJYKE0A&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-r1AUovKOY_liwL57oCQDw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22James%20Kipp%22%20%22fort%20piegan%22&f=false retrieved 9.23.13

Establishement of Ft. Piegan as told me by James Kipp.

--- http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/montana-history-almanac-fur-trader-abandons-fort-piegan/article_19222a8e-2e20-11df-ae63-001cc4c002e0.html Retrieved 9.23.13

March 15, 1832

James Kipp, fur trader for the American Fur Co., abandons Fort Piegan near the mouth of the Marias River.

Kipp and 75 company men built the post in October, the first in Blackfeet country above Fort Union on the Missouri River. A 25-foot palisade surrounds three large log buildings.

In its five-month life, Fort Piegan served an important role in opening trade relations with the Blackfeet. Previously, the tribe traded only with British-owned fur companies.

The Missouri River Co. twice attempted to establish posts on the Upper Missouri, in 1810 and 1821. Both were immediately shut down by hostile hosts.

By now the Blackfeet are more amenable to the Americans, and the traders have adapted their trading practices to better suit the Indians. Kipp offered greatly deflated prices and plenty of cheap whiskey. He’s taking home $46,000 worth of beaver pelts in return.

Another party of American Fur Co. trappers under David Mitchell will discover Fort Piegan burned to the ground when they arrive this summer. They’ll proceed a few miles upstream to establish Fort McKenzie, which will operate as a lucrative trading center for more than a decade.

--- http://www.mman.us/fortpiegan.htm Retrieved 9.23.13

Fort Piegan:

By 1830, Kenneth McKenzie, of the Upper Missouri Outfit of the Western Department, had made friendly contacts with the Blackfoot Indians further up the Missouri River and was ready to risk a post amongst this notoriously hostile tribe. McKenzie sent Jacob Berger, a former Hudson ’s Bay Company man who had previously had contacts with the tribe for his prior employer and already spoke the Blackfoot language. In 1830 Berger and a small party traveled up the Missouri to the confluence of the Marias River where he parlayed with the Blackfeet. He was successful in convincing a group of Blackfeet to accompanied Berger back to Fort Union for a conference with McKenzie where the Indians agreed to allow an American Fur Company post within their territory.

It wasn't until August of 1831 that James Kipp accompanied by about 75 men left Fort Union to establish the Blackfoot post. The Missouri River was low this late in the season, and the men struggled to move the keelboat loaded with trade goods and supplies upriver over the sandbars. The party didn't reach the intended post site, the mouth of the Marias River, until mid October. When the exhausted men arrived at the site, they found that there were already perhaps a thousand Blackfoot Indians waiting to begin trade.

Kip realized that his men couldn't conduct trade and build a fort simultaneously. Trading would leave the party terribly exposed should the Blackfeet take offense for any reason. Kip negotiated with the Blackfoot chiefs for a 75-day period in which the trading party could ready a fortified trading post prior to initiating trade. The new post was named Fort Piegan, after one of the principal subgroups of the Blackfoot nation. The fort was constructed of cottonwood logs and is reported to have been 110 feet square with palisades 25 feet high.

The Blackfeet eagerly embraced the presence of the American Fur Company men and their trade goods, supposedly bringing in 2,400 beaver pelts, buffalo robes and other furs within the first ten days that it was open. In spite of the commercial success, the men still harbored great fear of the Blackfoot Indians. Transporting the returns back to Fort Union in the spring of 1832 required approximately one-half of the fort personal. However, no-one was willing to remain behind at the fort and so Kipp took the entire complement of men down-river with him. When the Blackfeet found that the post had been apparently abandoned, contrary to promises made by the American Fur Company, they became enraged and burned the fort to the ground.

The following year McKenzie sent David Mitchell and a party of men up river to resume trade with the Blackfeet. Finding that Fort Piegan had been destroyed, Mitchell and his men proceeded an additional six miles up river where they established Fort McKenzie.

For more information about Fort Piegan see also:

Lepley, John G., Blackfoot Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri. Published by Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula 2004.

Hart, Herbert M., Tour Guide to Old Forts of Montana, Wyoming North & South Dakota. Published by the Pruett Publishing Company, Boulder Colorado 1980.

Malone, Michael P. and Richard B Roeder, Montana: A History of Two Centuries. Published by University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1976.