There are few historical descriptions of everyday activities at
early fur trading posts. However, some insight into the
operation of such a post has been provided in a letter written
November 19, 1831, by Indian agent John Dougherty, himself a
former fur trader, to U.S. Secretary of War Lewis Cass.
Dougherty was writing about the American Fur Company posts above
Council Bluffs in 1831, but his description could be equally
applicable to other posts about this time. "The number of men
employed at and under the control of the several regular
establishments perhaps may be estimated at an average of thirty
at eachthese men are employed in conducting packs of goods to
and from the several temporary trading places and likewise in
conducting in the furs, Skins and Pelteries and in securing
preparing and transporting them by water to St. Louis. Some are
likewise employed as expresses and hunting for the purpose of
procuring subsistence for the establishment. . . . "These men
engage for from one and two hundred dollars