Hudson Bay Fur Company ~ Index
The Hudson Bay Fur Company visits Cache Valley in 1833.
According to the account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, to the southwest, a company of (Hudson's Bay) fur trappers camped on Summit Creek in 1833, where Smithfield is now located. These trappers lost most of their mules during the winter and were obliged to Cache much of their supplies.
In his diary, Mr. John C. Dowdle states that in Los Angeles he met a German who was with this company of men and camped on Summit Creek in the winter of 1833. He reported that three miles northwest of the camp they cached their supplies in the bank of the stream now known as Cub River.
They made a dug-way in order to get down with their teams and in the dug-way they dug the hole to cache their supplies. They made a box from their wagon boxes and buried it in the ground. In this they cached several cannon, some sets of blacksmith tools, picks, shovels, crowbars, plows, muskets, ammunition and whiskey. After covering the cache, they drove over the place several times in order to cover up any traces of the cache.
Notes…
If the account noted above is indeed true, then this would predate the Bartleson–Bidwell wagon company of 1841 by some eight years. This then being the first wagons and teams to enter and thus be noted in Cache Valley. I understand that an Old Cache was found in early pioneer times in the area described above, on High Creek. Early Cache Valley winters, with deep snow and cold temperatures seemed to happen frequently in the early years, of which we have record.
They may have been working out of where Fort Boise would be established in 1834, replacing prior attempts to make a going concern there. The Astor expedition went through and noted this location in 1811. Several companies set up posts here prior to the Hudson Bay Company's permanent structure. Fort Hall at this time was in American hands, but would soon be sold to the Hudson Bay Company.
What we know today as, Fort Laramie, Fort Bridger, Fort Hall and Fort Boise were all first construed as private trading posts, long before the U.S. Government would make military outposts of them.