Born 1782,
Hopewell, New Jersey
Died 1842,
St. Louis, Missouri

Robert Stuart

Born 1785,
Scotland
Died 1848,
Detroit, Michigan

Born in Hopewell, New Jersey, in 1782, Wilson Price Hunt moved to St. Louis in 1804. Five years later he went to work for John Jacob Astor, a wealthy New York businessman who was trying to organize the fur trade with the Pacific Northwest. In 1810 Astor sent Hunt to Montreal to engage trappers for an expedition to the Columbia River to trap for furs. After completing his mission, Hunt returned to Missouri with his men, who were dubbed the “Overland Astorians.” They spent the winter of 1810-11 at a camp near present-day St. Joseph, Missouri, before embarking up the Missouri River in the spring.

Hunt pioneers Oregon Trail

In June 1811 Hunt’s party of 61 men reached the villages of the Arikara tribe, where they acquired 82 horses from the...