In the shadow of Quebec’s St. Sulpice Church, on a crisp June day in 1754, François Rivet was baptized, a son of the rugged L’Assomption parish, born to Nicolas-Pierre Rivet and Marie-Madeleine Gauthier dit Landreville. The blood of voyageurs coursed through him, inherited from his father and grandfather, Pierre, both of whom had paddled the wild rivers of New France, forging paths through uncharted wilderness. François, a great-grandson of Maurice Rivet, who had crossed the Atlantic to New France in 1664, was destined to carve his own legend in the vast, untamed expanses of North America.
As a young man in the 1780s, François embraced the life of a coureur de bois, an unlicensed fur trader slipping through the forests and rivers of Quebec, evading the strict regulations of the colonial authorities. By the 1790s, he formalized his calling, signing voyageur contracts, including one in 1791 with Jacques Giasson to travel “wherever required” for three years, excluding the far north. These contracts bound him to the rhythm of the fur trade, paddling canoes laden with pelts and supplies, navigating treacherous waters, and bartering with Indigenous peoples. His family’s legacy as voyageurs gave him the skills to survive and thrive in a world where danger and opportunity were two sides of the same coin.
By the turn of the century, François crossed into the Mississippi drainage, joining seasoned trappers and Indian traders on a perilous journey up the Missouri River. He encountered the Kansa, Omaha, Yankton Sioux, Teton Lakota, Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, learning their ways and earning their respect. In 1802, he narrowly escaped death when, as “La Riviere,” he was nearly shot by the Bois Brulé band during a trading venture with St. Louis entrepreneur Regis Loisel. Undeterred, he returned to St. Louis, his reputation as a resilient trapper growing.
In 1804, François joined the Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, at St. Charles. Hired to paddle a cargo pirogue, he agreed to travel only as far as the Mandan villages. That winter, he and three others—discharged from the expedition—built a hut near Fort Mandan, living under its protection. By spring 1805, François crafted a canoe with Philippe Degie and descended the Missouri to the Arikara nation with Warfington’s return party. Later that year, he joined General James Wilkinson’s pirogue party, aiming for the Yellowstone River, his restless spirit ever drawn to the frontier.
By 1806, when Lewis and Clark found him living among the Mandans, François had fully embraced the life of a mountain man. In 1807, he encamped in the Bitterroot Valley with John McClellan and a band of independent trappers, fiercely guarding their territory against the North West Company. The following winter, tragedy struck when Blackfeet or Gros Ventres ambushed their camp, killing McClellan and seven others. François escaped, his survival a testament to his cunning and grit. Short on ammunition, he traded with the North West Company’s David Thompson at their Kootenay River outpost, a pragmatic move in a world where alliances shifted like the wind.
In 1809, François, now a seasoned trapper, formed a country relationship with Therese Tete Platte, a young Flathead widow with a daughter. Their bond, rooted in mutual respect, produced a son named François. That same year, he likely joined Manuel Lisa’s trading company in the Flathead country, and by October, he was part of David Thompson’s crew building the Flathead Post near Libby, Montana. As a Métis interpreter and trapper, François bridged worlds, navigating the delicate balance between Indigenous nations and European traders.
By 1813, François was employed by the North West Company, living among the Flatheads and working as an interpreter. His family, including Therese and their children, traveled with the Salish, their lives woven into the rhythms of the land. The fierce competition between the North West Company and the Pacific Fur Company offered François a lucrative market, and he skillfully played the middle ground until the companies merged in 1813-14. At Spokane House, he was listed as a freeman interpreter, earning 600 livres annually, a role he held until 1816. In 1818, his stepdaughter Julia formed a relationship with trader Peter Skene Ogden, cementing François’s ties to the fur trade elite.
When the North West Company merged with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821, François joined the latter, becoming a key figure in Alexander Ross’s Snake Country brigade. By 1824, now known as “Old Rivet,” he was an interpreter with two guns, six traps, fifteen horses, and a lodge, leading a party that included his family. Under Ogden’s command, the brigade pursued a brutal “scorched earth” policy to trap out beavers and deter American rivals. In 1829, François transferred to Fort Colville on the Columbia River, and by 1832, at age seventy-five, he was entrusted with running the post—a remarkable feat for a man of his years.
In 1838, after nearly two decades with the Hudson’s Bay Company, François retired to French Prairie in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. That year, Catholic missionaries arrived, and François and Therese formalized their union in a grand wedding alongside other couples. Settling on a tract south of the St. Paul Mission, shared with his sons Antoine and Joseph, François became a respected figure, serving as godfather and witness at baptisms and marriages. In 1844, he was a vice president at a meeting that drafted “The French Petition,” urging Congress to protect Oregon settlers.
François Rivet died on September 27, 1852, at age ninety-six, his body laid to rest in the Old Saint Paul Roman Catholic Mission Cemetery. His life spanned continents and eras, from the forests of Quebec to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. A voyageur, trapper, interpreter, and patriarch, François Rivet was a bridge between worlds, his legacy etched in the rivers he paddled, the trails he blazed, and the family he nurtured in the heart of the frontier.
No comments:
Post a Comment