In the wake of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–1806), American entrepreneurs raced up the Missouri River to exploit the rich beaver country of the Upper Missouri and lands west of the Continental Divide. Two nearly simultaneous efforts in 1807 marked the beginning of sustained American activity in what is now Montana.
Manuel Lisa’s Eastern Outpost
Prominent St. Louis trader Manuel Lisa led a large party up the Missouri in 1807. By November, his men completed Fort Raymond (also known as Fort Manuel or Lisa’s Fort) at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers. Lisa hoped to establish a network of permanent trading posts for the fledgling Missouri Fur Company, where trappers could rendezvous and trade with tribes such as the Crow. The post represented the first American-built structure in the region, but it faced immediate and repeated attacks from Piegan (Blackfeet), Blood, and Gros Ventre (Atsina) warriors. Harassed and unprofitable, the fort was abandoned by 1811, and Lisa’s broader ambitions in the area largely failed.
Captain John McClellan’s Western Expedition and the “Jeremy Pinch” Affair
That same year, Captain John McClellan (also spelled McClallen or McClallan), a former U.S. Army artillery officer from New York and associate of General James Wilkinson, led a bolder and more mysterious venture into western Montana. McClellan had encountered Lewis and Clark on their downstream return in 1806. After wintering with the Yankton Nakota, his party grew significantly. Two veterans of the Lewis and Clark expedition joined him, along with roughly 30 experienced French-Canadian freemen (independent trappers, many displaced by mergers in the Montreal fur companies) who sought safe passage to the beaver-rich upper Yellowstone and beyond.
By July 1807 the enlarged group—totaling around 42 men—reached the headwaters of the Yellowstone. McClellan composed a lengthy letter asserting U.S. trading regulations over the Upper Louisiana Territory, including territory west of the mountains, and had friendly Indians deliver it to British traders.
By late August 1807, the party arrived in the vicinity of present-day Missoula and the lower Clark Fork River area (possibly near today’s Dixon). Local Salish (Flathead) counted the Americans accurately. Their Nez Perce neighbors recognized at least two of the men as former members of the Corps of Discovery.
McClellan explored the Clark Fork, identified a potential route linking the Missouri and Columbia river systems, and attempted (without success) to broker peace between the western tribes (Salish, Kootenai, Nez Perce) and their eastern enemies, the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre.
To deter British competition, the Americans sent two Kootenai messengers to David Thompson of the North West Company. The messages, signed under the pseudonyms “Captain Zachary Perch” or “Jeremy Pinch” (widely believed to be McClellan himself), claimed the Americans had a fortified post on the lower Flathead River and warned Thompson he was trespassing on U.S. soil. A second letter accused the British of arming the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre for raids against the Flathead and Kootenai. Historian James P. Ronda called these letters “a clever, perhaps desperate ploy to frighten rival traders out of a rich beaver country.”
François Rivet: Lewis and Clark Veteran, Mountain Man, and Long-Term Survivor
Among the most consequential members of McClellan’s party was François Rivet (c. 1754–1852), a French-Canadian voyageur and one of the few men with direct ties to the Lewis and Clark expedition who remained in the West for decades. Rivet had joined the Corps of Discovery at St. Charles in 1804 but signed on only as far as the Mandan villages. He and several other Frenchmen built their own shelter near Fort Mandan and worked as hunters and laborers during the winter of 1804–05. When Lewis and Clark returned downstream in 1806, they found Rivet still living among the Mandans. He later linked up with McClellan’s venture, possibly along with another former Corps associate.
Rivet was present when the party reached Salish country in western Montana in 1807. The following spring (1808), McClellan and about 12 men, including Rivet, accompanied Salish buffalo hunters eastward across the mountains in a risky attempt to advance the peace initiative. On or about May 22, 1808, hostile northern plains warriors (likely Blackfeet or allied groups opposed to any accommodation) ambushed the party. McClellan and eight others were killed. Rivet was one of only four known survivors.
He returned west with Salish buffalo hunters and integrated into their seasonal rounds. Short on ammunition, the survivors soon traded with David Thompson’s North West Company outposts, including one at the Kootenay River falls and later Saleesh House on the Clark Fork. Thompson, intent on asserting British presence, largely omitted mention of the prior American effort.
Rivet made his living as a beaver trapper in the Flathead and Bitterroot country. By 1809 he entered into a country marriage with a young Salish widow named Therese Tete Platte (recorded in later Catholic mission documents; “Tete Platte” meaning “Flat Head”). She already had a daughter, Julia, from a previous marriage. Rivet and Therese had children together, including sons François (who died young), Antoine (born c. 1808–1809 in Montana), and Joseph. Their family lived and traveled with Salish bands for years.
In November 1809, Rivet (recorded as “Rive”) and other free trappers associated with Detroit trader Charles Courtin visited Thompson’s post. Courtin was later killed in an ambush in the notorious Hellgate Canyon in 1810. Rivet helped adjudicate the distribution of Courtin’s recovered furs and continued working in the region as a trapper and occasional interpreter.
Rivet’s long career extended far beyond these dangerous early years. He worked for the North West Company, later the Hudson’s Bay Company, and American concerns, serving as an interpreter and hunter (including with Alexander Ross in the Snake River country). He and Therese eventually moved to the Willamette Valley in Oregon (French Prairie / Champoeg area). In 1839 they formalized their marriage in a Catholic ceremony at St. Paul Mission. François Rivet died in Marion County, Oregon, on September 27, 1852, at the remarkable age of about 96—outliving most of his contemporaries and witnessing the transition from fur-trade wilderness to American settlement. He is buried at the Old Saint Paul Roman Catholic Mission Cemetery.
Significance
Manuel Lisa’s Fort Raymond was the first American post built in Montana, but it proved short-lived. Captain John McClellan’s 1807–1808 expedition represented the earliest documented American penetration into western Montana’s beaver country, complete with diplomatic maneuvering against British rivals and attempted peacemaking among tribes. Yet it ended in violence for most involved.
François Rivet stands out as the most enduring figure from this turbulent period. A veteran of the Lewis and Clark expedition who chose to stay in the West, he survived the deadly 1808 ambush that claimed McClellan, adapted to Salish life and seasonal buffalo hunts, navigated the competitive world of British and American traders, raised a Métis family in the Flathead country, and lived long enough to see the Oregon Trail era begin. His story embodies the resilience of the French-Canadian voyageur tradition and the complex, often overlooked personal connections between early American explorers, independent trappers, and Indigenous nations in the opening of the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.
This updated account draws on primary journals, David Thompson’s records, and detailed genealogical and regional research (including Drifting Cowboy’s blogs on the Rivet family and voyageur heritage). Rivet deserves recognition not merely as a survivor, but as one of the longest-serving and most adaptable participants in the early trans-Mississippi fur trade.
Thank you to Grok xAI for helping me review and organize the record for cousin François Rivet. -- Drifting Cowboy
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