Note 3 — Front matter

(page page 3).—-Robert Stuart, born in Scotland in 1784, was educated in Paris; coming to America when twenty-two years of age, he went at once to Montreal, connecting himself with the Northwest Fur Company. In 1810, in connection with his uncle, David Stuart, he joined forces with John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company, and was one of the party which went from New York by sea to found Astoria, on the Pacific coast. In 1812, in company with Ramsay Crooks, he was sent overland to New York with important despatches for the company—a hazardous expedition, which consumed nearly a year in its accomplishment. He arrived at Mackinac in 1819, a partner with Astor in the American Fur Company, and manager of its affairs throughout the wide expanse of country which was then served from this entrepôt. After fifteen years upon the island, where he was the leading resident, Stuart went to Detroit in 1834, upon the closing out of the company’s affairs. At that place he took prominent part in business and public affairs. In 1887 we find him local director of the poor; in 1839, moderator of the school district; in 1840-41, state treasurer of Michigan, and from 1841-45, United States Indian agent for that state. Stuart also took active part in church work, was insistent on discountenancing the rum traffic, which always went hand in hand with the fur trade, and bore a high reputation for personal probity. Dying suddenly in Chicago, in 1848, his body was taken in a sailing-vessel around by the lakes to Detroit; at Mackinac Island, en route, it lay in state for several hours.