Details

Collection Summary
Collection: A - A Collection
Folder: 0000.000
Item: 3014_00001
Title: Kenneth McKenzie
Date: 1835
Creator: Unknown
Inscription/Marks: [printed under portrait] Kenneth McKenzie [Chittenden, Hiram Martin (1902). The American fur trade of the far West, Volume I. New York : Francis P. Harper.]
Summary: Half-length, three-quarter face portrait of Kenneth McKenzie, Fort Union bourgeois. Copied from book. [Frontier Diplomats: Alexander Culbertson and Natoyist-Siksina' Among the Blackfeet By Lesley Wischmann p35] Kenneth McKenzie, born in Scotland in 1797, emigrated to the United States around 1817. After clerking for the North West Company, he entered the fur trade on the upper Mississippi, where he almost certainly met Alexander Culbertson, before moving to the upper Missouri. In 1827, he merged his interests with those of the powerful Chouteau family and the hegemony of the American Fur Company over the Missouri trade began. In 1829, McKenzie erected Fort Union near the junction of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. McKenzie chose a site some three miles above the junction where the river ran close to the bank, offering easy docking for loading and unloading cargo. McKenzie built on the north bank where the prairie extended a mile or more, providing level ground for the Indian encampments McKenzie hoped would be abundant at trading time. A stout palisade surrounded the quadrangle of buildings housing employee quarters, storerooms, and a retail shop. At the north end stood the impressive Bourgeois's House. Imposing, two-story stone bastions guarded the northeast and southwest corners with a tall flagstaff in the open center court. (McKenzie, Kenneth--1797-1861) Kenneth McKenzie was nicknamed the "King of the Missouri", for as a fur trader for American Fur Company in the upper Missouri River valley, he controlled a territory larger than most European nations.
Red ID: PH_I_101285 Image ID: 177514 Image Notes: A3014-00001-negative

Collection: A Digitized Images from Collection
Title: A Collection
Date: XX/XXXX

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