Andrew Henry (fur trader)

Andrew Henry ( * 1775 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, † January 10, 1832 ) was an American trappers and fur traders and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. According to him, several rivers in Idaho and Utah and a lake in Idaho are named.

Life

Andrew Henry was the son of George and Margaret Henry in Fayette County Pennsylvania in 1775. In 1799 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee. In April 1800, he moved to Sainte Genevieve in what was then French Louisiana, now Missouri. On December 16, 1805 he married Marie Villars. One of the witnesses was his subsequent trading partner William Henry Ashley. The marriage, however, was not of long duration, in October 1807 ended in divorce. Henry is described as a cultured gentleman who loved literature and life and played the violin well.

In April 1807, he broke up with Manuel Lisa, George Drouillard, John Potts, Peter Weiser and other participants on an expedition along the Missouri River. Near the mouth of the Platte River, they met John Colter in 1806 separated from the returning Lewis and Clark Expedition and since then the region alone had explored. Lisa won John Colter as a scout for the expedition. About the Yellowstone River they came to the mouth of the Bighorn River. In November 1807, they established the trading post Fort Raymond, also known as Manuel's Fort. It was the first commercial station in the territory that became Montana. After Lisa's return to St. Louis bought a Andrew Henry in Manuel Lisa's Missouri Fur Company, and rose from the employee to the shareholders.

In the spring of 1809 they broke again on an expedition along the Missouri River on the territory of the present-day states of Montana and Idaho. They built the trading post Fort Lisa and bought beaver furs from the Indians of the area. They explored the Three Forks of the Missouri River, where there were violent clashes with the Blackfoot Indians. On the run to the south Henry crossed the first white American since the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-06 the main ridge of the Rocky Mountains, and came to what is now Idaho. In the spring of 1811, he discovered the eponymous Lake Henry and the Henry's Fork River near the present-day St. Anthony, Idaho. In addition, he explored parts of the upper reaches of the Snake River and the Green River, the latter as the first white American. In January 1812 Andrew Henry returned to St. Louis.

During the British - American War of 1812, he joined the Missouri militia, reaching the rank of Major. In 1818 he married the considerably younger Mary Flemming. With her he had four children.

In 1822 he was co-founder of William Henry Ashley Ashley & Henry, later the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Major Henry leads an expedition of 150 men, 60 horses and a boat along the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. He founded the short-lived Fort Henry. In 1823, he and some of his men in the campaign of U.S. Army troops and private trapper in part against the Arikaree on the Missouri River. In 1824 he left the partnership with William H. Ashley and returned to St. Louis. He died on 10 January 1832.

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