| Summary: | EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH DAKOTA 173 Company having adopted his recommendation, the "Yellowstone" was built at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1830, and left St. Louis on its first up-river trip April 16, 183 1, in command of Capt. B. Young, arriving at Fort Tecumseh, June 19th, and returning to St. Louis with a full cargo of furs. March 26, 1832, this vessel left on her second trip up the Missouri. River, reaching Fort Tecumseh May 31st, where she remained several days, in the meantime the fort's location and name being changed to Fort Pierre, named for Pierre Chouteau, who was a passenger on the boat which went on to Fort Union. This was the first steamboat to reach the mouth of the Yellowstone River. She returned to Fort Pierre June 25th, having made a successful trip, and thereafter annual trips were made by American Fur Company steamboats to Fort Union. The Indians called the Yellowstone the "fire boat that walks on the water," and were so enthusiastic over the trip that they declared they would trade no more with the Hudson's Bay Company, which, up to that time, had the major portion of the trade of the Blackfeet and Assiniboines. STEAMER ''ASSINIBOINE'^ FIRST STEAMER ABOVE THE YELLOWSTONE The steamer "Assiniboine" accompanied the steamer "Yellowstone" on its annual trip to Fort Union in 1833, having Prince Maximilian for a passenger. She continued her trip some distance above the Yellowstone but was forced into win-ter quarters by low water, and during the winter her crew built Fort Assiniboine. She was burned at Sibley Island in May, 1835, on her down trip. FORT ASSINIBOINE Fort Assiniboine, built by the crew of the steamer Assiniboine in enforced winter quarters, was occupied that winter by Daniel Lament, whose party secured in trade from the Indians 179 red foxes, 1,646 prairie foxes, 18 cross foxes, 74 badgers, 269 muskrats, 89 white wolves, 196 white hares, 5 swan skins, 4,200 buffalo robes, 37 dressed buffalo cow skins, 12 dressed calf skins, 450 salted tongues, 3,500 pounds of dried meat. The fort was abandoned in the spring of 1835, and was burned by the Indians. Its exact location is not now known, but it marked the first advance of steam navigation above the mouth of the, Yel-lowstone. THE ANNUAL STEAMBOAT For the nearly forty years that Fort Union was maintained as a trading post, the arrivals of the annual boat were events which were considered worthy of detailed description by Capt. Hiram M. Chittenden in his "History of the Amer-ican Fur Trade" : "On these occasions," he says, "the dreary routine of the trader's life suddenly changed to unwonted activity. The long looked-for annual boat was in sight!—the great event of the year—with news from the outside world, and all of the business matters that made up the purpose of the journey. "The fort manned its guns (for it had several small cannon mounted in the bastions), and a hearty salute was fired. The boat vigorously responded. Every-body about the fort crowded to the scene, the bourgeois, for whom a respectful space was made in the crowd, and the clerks, artisans, storekeepers, groups of Internet Archive
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