01Biography
Robert Stuart left Scotland for the Canadian fur trade and in 1810 joined John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company. He sailed around Cape Horn on the company ship Tonquin, which reached the Columbia River in 1811, where the company built Fort Astoria. In June 1812 he set out east overland with a small party carrying news to Astor. That October they crossed South Pass, the first non-Native travelers known to cross it, then spent a hard winter on the North Platte before reaching St. Louis in April 1813.
02Why they matter
Led the small party that crossed the Rockies at South Pass in 1812, on the route the Oregon Trail later followed.
03How they died
He stayed with Astor's American Fur Company for years, running its business on Mackinac Island, Michigan, and later settled in Detroit, where he served as Michigan's state treasurer from 1840 to 1841. He died suddenly on a business trip to Chicago in October 1848, aged 63.
04Legacy
His journal is the first detailed account of much of the future Oregon Trail, written decades before the wagons came. The Robert Stuart House on Mackinac Island is now a city museum with exhibits on the fur trade.