thousands of geese, ducks, swan and cranes, and rodents like the beaver
and other animals furnished the red man with the warmest of raiment in
the coldest winter.

To give some idea of the vast wealth of this domain in fur bearing
animals alone, it may be taken into account that in the year 1818 the
American Fur Company, under the control of John Jacob Astor, with
headquarters at Mackinaw, had in its employ about four hundred clerks
and traders, together with about two thousand French voyageurs, who
roamed all the rivers and lakes of the Indian country from the British
dominions on the north, to as far west as the Missouri river. Astor had
established a great fur business in direct competition with the British
Northwest Company and commanded attention in both London and China. The
"outfits" of this company had trading posts on the Illinois, and all its
tributaries; on the Muskegon, Grand, Kalamazoo and other rivers in
Michigan; on the line of the old Potawatomi trail from the Wabash
country to post Chicago, and in the neighborhood of the Beaver lake
region in northern Indiana, and at many other points. The furs handled
by them consisted of the marten (sable), mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx,
wildcat, fox, wolverine, badger, otter, beaver, bears and deer, of which
the most valuable were those of the silver-gray fox and the marten. The
value of these furs mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars
and they were originally all consigned to New York. For these
interesting observations history lovers are indebted to the
autobiography of the late Gurdon S. Hubbard of Chicago, who was, in his
youth, in the employ of Astor, and who later in his lifetime conducted a
trading post at Bunkum, now Iroquois, in Iroquois County, Illinois. It
has been estimated that in the days of England's control of Canada and
of all the northwest territory, that more than half in value of all the
furs exported "came from countries within the new boundaries of the
United States," that is, from the district north and west of the Ohio
river.

Of all the fur-bearers, the most interesting were the beavers. How much
these industrious gnawers had to do with the French and Indian wars and
the rivalry between England and France for the control of their domain
north of the Ohio, is not generally appreciated. An animal that could be
instrumental in part, in bringing about an armed conflict between the
two greatest powers of that day, should not be entire