The Revenant
New award-winning movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as mountain man Hugh Glass.
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More ‘Revenant’ history fun
A major Hollywood movie brings the Hugh Glass story to life
by Pinedale Online!
January 24, 2016
For history buffs who are following the fact vs. fiction history threads being brought up by the new award-winning movie "The Revenant," we’re borrowing this interesting tidbit from a recent Facebook post by the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale.
The St. Louis Public Radio posted an article in which historian Jay Buckley was interviewed on "St. Louis on the Air" on January 15th and discussed some of the movie’s connections to St. Louis, Missouri. In real life, St. Louis is the town where Hugh Glass and fellow crew started the expedition featured in "The Revenant." Jay Buckley is an associate professor at Brigham Young University in Utah and is a published author in the Museum of the Mountain Man’s "Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal" and also came to Pinedale as a speaker at the 2012 Fur Trade Symposium hosted by the Museum of the Mountain Man.
In the St. Louis Public Radio online article, Jay Buckley goes into a little more depth about William Ashley who was partnered with Andrew Henry (the expedition leader who was killed by John Fitzgerald in the movie, but not in real life.) William Ashley and Andrew Henry were business partners and Henry led the fur trade expedition Hugh Glass was on when the grizzly bear attack occurred. Buckley explains that Ashley was interested in the fur trade enterprises because it was a profitable business opportunity that could help him make money to fund his political ambitions. Ashley served in the U.S. House of Representatives and then made a try to run for Governor of Missouri (but lost).
Buckley wrote an article for the Museum of the Mountain Man’s Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal (RMFTJ Vol. 8, 2014) about a newly discovered 1826 diary written by William Ashley which chronicles his last trip into the Rockies and the inner workings of the Rocky Mountain fur trade near the time of its inception. The journal is exciting because for years it was believed to be the diary of Ashley’s clerk, Robert Campbell. The diary is housed in the Robert Campbell House in St. Louis. Fur trade historians had a revelation and realized that the diary was actually the work of Ashley instead of Campbell, which put a completely new spin on the meaning of some of the contents. Buckley’s article describes how the diary was found and eventually made its way into the archives of the Campbell House Museum in St. Louis. He then chronicles Ashley’s time on the trail in 1826 (3 years after the Hugh Glass grizzly bear mauling incident) and explains its significance to the fur trade record. The 2014 RMFTJ Vol. 8 reproduces Ashley’s 91-page 1826 journal in its entirety. The diary was on display as a special exhibit at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale in 2014.
Click on this link to read the article posted on the St. Louis Public Radio website: ‘The Revenant’ is nominated for 12 Oscars. Here’s the St. Louis connection you didn’t know.
Click on the links below to find out more about some of the real life men involved in this early expedition into the frontier of the American West. The Museum of the Mountain Man’s Facebook page has a lot more threads following interesting directions of the story of our early American history and how it connects to us today.
Related Links
Museum of the Mountain Man Facebook page
Volume 8, 2014 Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal - Museum of the Mountain Man/Sublette County Historical Society, Pinedale, Wyoming
Proceedings of the 2012 Fur Trade Symposium - Museum of the Mountain Man/Sublette County Historical Society publication
Newly-discovered 1826 William Ashley Journal on display at the Museum of the Mountain Man - Pinedale Online, July 10, 2014
Mountain man who inspired 'The Revenant' has Wyoming connection - Casper Star-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2016
www.hughglass.org - The Hugh Glass story, Fact vs. Fiction (Museum of the Mountain Man/Sublette County Historical Society website)
The Ashley-Henry Enterprise - hughglass.org, Hugh Glass, Fact vs. Fiction (Museum of the Mountain Man/Sublette County Historical Society website)
Inside ‘The Revenant’, new movie about 1823 grizzly bear mauling of mountain man Hugh Glass - Pinedale Online, Dec. 11, 2015
‘The Revenant’ takes Best Motion Picture at Golden Globes - Pinedale Online, Jan. 11, 2016
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