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In 1824 the rendezvous system[?] began [2] which hauled supplies to the mountains in the spring and brought back pelts in the fall. Major Ashley[?] started this system through the Rocky Mountain Fur Company[?]. He sold this business to the outfit of Smith, Jackson and Sublette[?] while still taking the profits by selling that firm their supplies. This system continued with other firms, particularly the American Fur Company[?], entering the field.
The beaver pelts had been needed to make the beaver hats[?] then popular in England. Fashions changed in the early 1840s making beaver less valuable at a time that they were harder to find because of overtrapping[?]. The opening of the Oregon Trail and the use of the Mormon Trail[?] gave employment to the trappers who did not want to return to civil society.
2. Fred R. Gowans, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous (Layton, Utah: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985), 13.
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