In the 1850s and 1860s, his store, Keevil the Hatter shared space at Corinthian Hall, a respected performance venue about where Busch Stadium is today. Relatives Alfred, in Pittsburgh and William in Balitmore were also hatters. This may help explain a simple and otherwise unremarkable article from the Philadelphia Public Ledger of January 11 1840: These were common enough in the late 1800’s, that in Danbury Connecticut, capitol of the American hat industry, they were referred to as the “Danbury shakes.” Hatters tended to develop some troubling symptoms: depression, irritability, hallucinations, and characteristic tremors. Though unrealized at the time, the use of mercury nitrate in felt production caused mercury fumes to be inhaled, moving through lungs to bloodstream to brain, where it lodged and accumulated over time. Lewis Carroll popularized the Mad Hatter in his 1865 fantasy, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but the term “mad as a hatter” preceded the book by a good 35 years. The expression “mad as a hatter” also has some truth in it. A hatter was an artisan who could turn felt into durable and attractive headwear. Fur is degraded to felt, which is then matted and molded into a hat. The process of making felt from a pelt is called carroting from the interaction of chemicals that turns the pelt orange. A brief word about the madness of hatters By 1870, more beaver was used in perfume production than in providing felt for hats. Luckily for the beaver, fashion was also changing, as silk became seen as a more refined choice for top hats. The rivers were the roads in those days, and the beaver inhabited the rivers.Īfter every stream was explored and beaver by the tens of millions had been trapped, skinned and shipped east, the supply became exhausted. Demolished for the Gateway Arch project in 1959, its facade was recently reassembled in the Arch museum.Īn era of exploration, trapping, and trading constituted the earliest development of the West, leading to conflicts with indigenous tribes and foreign interests on the Pacific coast. It was a Missouri Fur Company warehouse, and along with the Old Cathedral, one of only two structures around the riverfront to have survived the great fire of 1849. He also created the Missouri Fur Company with Chouteau’s son Pierre, William Clark, Pierre Menard and others.Ībove is a 1930s photo of the original Old Rock House, built by Manuel Lisa in 1818. Wasting no time, he outfitted an expedition that set off less than a year later, to trap in the new lands. On the evening of Lewis and Clark’s return to St Louis in 1806, they shared a sumptuous meal and more than a couple drinks with Lisa, who gleaned as much fresh detail as he could. This was Lisa’s best hope of competing with Chouteau by, in effect, leap-frogging him. Louis, in return for logging the most attractive sites for trapping as they went. They were partially funded by Manuel Lisa, a wealthy fur trader in St. Louis.įollowing the sale of the Louisiana territory from France to the young United States in 1803, Thomas Jefferson assigned Lewis and Clark to explore and survey the new acquisition. When he died in 1829, Chouteau was easily the wealthiest man in St. By 1794, he had monopolized the fur trade with the Osage. When Laclede died, Chouteau took over the trading operation, and widely expanded it.

Along with his 14 year old ward, Auguste Chouteau, they founded what is now St. They were set on exploiting access to fur trading with the Osage nation west along the Missouri River. In 1764, a party of New Orleanians led by Pierre Laclede journeyed up the Mississippi River. As a result, the victorious English claimed almost all French holdings in the new world. By the early 1600s, the English joined in, developing the trade along the Atlantic coast.Īs the market for pelts, fur and felt grew insatiable during the 17th and 18th centuries, the two rival nations butted heads west of the Allegheny Mountains one cause of the French and Indian War. Quebec was founded as a trapping and trading center, and fed a boom in pelts for beaver hats. The French explored eastern Canada in the early 1500s, trapping beaver, ermine, and mink for the aristocracy back home.

Louis owe their very existence to the fur trade. Indeed, it was most likely the impetus for its settlement in the first place. The craving of upper class French and English gentlemen for stylish and water resistant beaver felt hats accelerated the settling of the American Northwest.

The hatter