Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade

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155 8 William Drummond Stewart spent the winter of 1834–35 at Fort Vancouver living in baronial splendor with his generous host, and then in February joined a supply party led by Francis Ermatinger, a Hudson’s Bay Company man. Nathaniel Wyeth recorded in his journal, “Went to the Cascades and there found Mr. Ermatinger with a brigade of 3 boats taking up the outfits for the upper forts also Capt. Stewart Mr. Ray [William Glen Rae, who would later commit suicide in San Francisco] and one more gentleman.” Stewart would stay at Fort Walla Walla until the mountain passes opened, and then the party would push on. At the beginning of the summer trapper Osborne Russell recorded in his journal at Fort Hall: “On the 10th of June a small party belonging to the Hudson Bay Company arrived from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, under the direction of Mr. F. Ermatinger, accompanied by Capt. Wm. Stewart, an English half-pay officer who had passed the winter at Vancouver and was on a tour of pleasure in the Rocky Mountains. On the 12th they left Fort Hall and started for the grand rendezvous on Green River.”1 The rendezvous of 1835 did not get under way until late in the summer . The trappers gathered and the revelries began as best they could in the absence of sufficient alcohol, but it was not until August 12 that the supply caravan of the partnership Fitzpatrick, Sublette & Bridger arrived at the Green River. The caravan, under the direction of Lucien 156 Fontenelle, had gotten a late start and had then been delayed by an outbreak of cholera. Traveling with the party were two missionaries on their way to minister to the Flathead Indians: Rev. Samuel Parker and his young assistant, Dr. Marcus Whitman. Parker and Whitman had been sent by the New England–based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a joint Congregational -Presbyterian enterprise. Whitman was a trained physician, so when en route the fur traders began to experience violent diarrhea and projectile vomiting, and their skin began to wrinkle and turn blue, Fontenelle turned to the missionary doctor for help. The epidemic of cholera sweeping across America that summer had unfortunately reached the Fontenelle party. “For twelve days,” writes Bernard DeVoto, “they had a vicious battle with the plague, new cases every day, one of them Fontenelle himself, and at least three deaths. Whitman saved the caravan. . . . He warmed them, fed them, comforted them, saw them through, got the camp moved to higher ground and cleaner surroundings — and suddenly they were all convalescing, the attack was over.”2 Fontenelle took the caravan as far as Fort William, where he met up with Tom Fitzpatrick and turned the command over to him. Fontenelle, still weak from his bout of cholera, convalesced at the fort for the rest of the summer and then resumed command of the party on its return trip to St. Louis. By the time Fitzpatrick’s party reached the rendezvous, Dr. Whitman had taken on a somewhat legendary status and the story of his skill as a physician quickly spread throughout the encampment. Men who had been without professional medical care for years began to line up to be treated. One of them was Jim Bridger, who had been carrying an arrowhead in his back since the battle of Pierre’s Hole in the summer of 1832. When Dr. Whitman made an exploratory incision he discovered that the three-inch, barbed-iron arrowhead “was hooked at the point striking a large bone and a cartilaginous substance had grown round it.” In an open-air operating theater, with trappers and Indians shouting encouragement and helpful instructions, Whitman dug deep and at last extracted the arrowhead. When Whitman marveled that Bridger 157 had been able to function with a piece of barbed iron festering in his back, the mountain man answered with a laconic, “In the mountains, Doctor, meat don’t spoil.”3 Jim Bridger handed the extracted arrowhead to William Drummond Stewart, who slipped it into his pocket. Stewart would one day repay the gift by bringing Bridger the oddest object ever to be carried to the annual rendezvous. Rev. Parker and Dr. Whitman were delighted to learn that Stewart was thoroughly familiar with Rev. Jason Lee, whom the missionary society had sent out before them. Stewart gave them a detailed update on Lee’s settlement...