Lead in Mt Man Era

[Cajun72]

So always wondered. During the Fur Trade Era, what did the Mt Men do to acquire lead? Buy at Rendezvous?

 

[Brokennock]

There have been numerous posts and topics since 2018 showing the various trade lists and inventories of stuff that went west to supply the "mountain men" at rendezvous and trading posts.

Maybe use the search feature and look for, "Manuel Lisa"
I could be off on the spelling.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

When we were kids we would go to a place in eastern WA that were abandoned lead mines.
We picked up broken nodules and take them home and melt the lead out of them.
The world has been doing it since the Roman days.

Much later in 1873 the Army didnt issue cartridges. You had to make them. So they carried the lead bars on the chuck wagon.

 

[tenngun]

So always wondered. During the Fur Trade Era, what did the Mt Men do to acquire lead? Buy at Rendezvous?

Lead came in one to three ‘pound’ bars. Looked like bread sticks or long thin ingots. They were thin enough to hack off a hunk with a hatchet
The ‘pound’ was actually fourteen ounces. The smelters that provided the bars sold it by the pound, fourteen ounce and the middleman sold it by the pound. The extra two ounces were the dealers profit
Lead was ten cents a pound in 1825 Saint Louis, the same price as salt and lower quality gun powder
This was about a tenth of what a common worker would make in a day. American soldiers in 1812 made a dime a day, and in 25 was still about twenty dollars a month. Ten cents was a bit of change
No doubt many Mountian men knew how to make powder and turn galena in to lead, but I don’t recall one reference to them having done it

 

[FishDFly]

When they shot a critter, they retrieved the lead from the dead critter.

 

[Cajun72]

Lead came in one to three ‘pound’ bars. Looked like bread sticks or long thin ingots. They were thin enough to jack off a hunk with a hatchet
The ‘pound’ was actually fourteen ounces. The smelters that provided the bars sold it by the pound, fourteen ounce and the middleman sold it by the pound. The extra two ounces were the dealers profit
Lead was ten cents a pound in 1825 Saint Louis, the same price as salt and lower quality gun powder
This was about a tenth of what a common worker would make in a day. American soldiers in 1812 made a dime a day, and in 25 was still about twenty dollars a month. Ten cents was a bit of change
No doubt many Mountian men knew how to make powder and turn galena in to lead, but I don’t recall one reference to them having done it

Thanks that information answers a lot of questions.