Lot
17 
[Indians - Osage Nation] Factory System/Fur Trade, "Fort Osage, 1st Jany. 1811", dateline on folded letter to Detroit Mich. with "Public Service, J. Brownson" endorsement, carried down the Missouri River and entered mails with manuscript "St. Louis Jany 24" postmark over "3/4 oz" notation and "75" rating at right, letter contains quarterly returns of a company of the First Infantry Regiment that was stationed at the fort, in a postscript the writer says "6 of our Osage Indians have been lately killed by a party of Pawtowatomies"; some light soiling, Very Fine. Estimate $500 - 750.
Following a treaty with the Osage Indians on November 10, 1808 Fort Osage was built on the big eddy of the Missouri River on a bluff 70 feet high near the present site of Sibley, Jackson County, Missouri. It replaced Fort Belle Fontaine as an Indian trading post and soon became the most important post in the United States. It was evacuated during the War of 1812 (in 1813), but the garrison returned in 1815. Troops were withdrawn in 1819 at the time of the Yellowstone Expedition, when the garrison was moved to Fort Atkinson at Old Council Bluffs. The fur trading operations were shut down in 1822 when the Indian Factory System was terminated, but the post was not abandoned until 1827, when Fort Leavenworth was built to protect the Santa Fe Trail. George C. Sibley was the factor at Fort Osage during its entire existence as a trading post. He later founded the town of Sibley, Missouri near the abandoned fort.
Realized: $1,300