Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/18

 6 Joseph J. Hill Thomas L. (Peg-leg) Smith, Antoine Robidoux, Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson, David Waldo, Kit Carson, Moses Carson, Job F. Dye, Sidney Cooper, J. J. Warner, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Dick Wooton, Slover, Sinclair, Gaunt, Le Duke, La Bonte, etc. The importance of Ewing Young in the fur trade of the Far Southwest. Of these names no one is deserving of greater consideration than that of Ewing Young. For some twelve years, as already stated, he was, perhaps, the central figure in the fur trade of the Far Southwest. Within those years he trapped the waters of the Rio del Norte, the Pecos, the San Juan, the Gila, the Colorado, and the Grand of the Rocky Mountain Southwest, and the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers of California. But he was more than a fur trapper. He was an organ- izer and leader of men, always at the head of the party which he accompanied, never just a lay member. He also equipped and financed parties which he did not ac- company. Young's initiation into the fur trade of the Far South- west. Young was evidently a member of Becknell's ex- pedition to New Mexico in 1821, for Barrows, in speaking of Becknell's 1822 expedition, says that Captain Becknell, Ewing Young, and a powder maker by the name of Ferrel had some kind of contract to supply the Mexican govern- ment with powder, which at that time was enormously high. The arranging of this contract must have been part of the business transacted during Becknell's short stay in Santa Fe on his 1821 expedition. In order, there- fore, for Young to have been associated with Becknell m that contract it is evident that they must have been to- gether in New Mexico at that time. Young must, also, have been one of Becknell's three companions on his return to Missouri in December of 1821, for Barrows speaks of him as a member of Becknell's 1822 expedition. Upon their arrival at Santa Fe in the summer of 1822, they set about exploring the neighboring country in