Ceran St. Vrain
Ceran St. Vrain (May 5, 1802 – October 28, 1870) was a descendant of French aristocrats who came to the United States during the French Revolution. He was born on May 5, 1802 near St. Louis, Missouri. His full name was Ceran de Hault de Lassus de St. Vrain. He traded near Taos, New Mexico, and trapped near the North Platte River in Colorado.
He formed the enterprise known as Bent, St. Vrain & Company, in a partnership with William Bent. The Bent-St. Vrain Company's Mexican trade grew rapidly as their wagon trains travelled between Independence and Westport, Missouri, and company stores in Santa Fe and Taos where they traded cloth, glass, hardware and tobacco for silver, furs, horses and mules.
The Bent-St. Vrain Company built an elaborate adobe fort on the eastern Colorado plains known as Bent's Fort. Along the Santa Fe Trail, this was the only privately owned fortification in the west and it became a premier trading center and rendezvous point. He also helped establish Old Fort Saint Vrain along the South Platte River.
Ceran St. Vrain was known and respected as far north as the Snake River and as far south as Chihuahua. When notables came to the fort, it was the "charming and gentlemanly" St. Vrain who entertained the visitors.
During the Taos Revolt, St. Vrain organized a force that was instrumental in suppressing the rebellion. St. Vrain's 65 volunteers (including a few New Mexicans such as Manuel Chaves, who was to save St. Vrain's life) joined more than 300 American troops in Santa Fe and set off for Taos. Along the way, they met and beat back a force of some 1,500 Mexicans and Indians. The rebels—as the Americans called them—retreated to Taos Pueblo and took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church there. During the Siege of Pueblo de Taos, St. Vrain's "Emergency Brigade" set up a position between the church and the mountains to cut off any of the enemy who tried to escape the frontal assault by the American troops. The mounted volunteers reportedly ran down and killed 51 Mexicans, Taos Indians and Apaches in the fierce, close-quarter fighting that followed.
In 1855 St. Vrain settled in Mora County, New Mexico where he built a flour mill and supplied flour to Fort Union north of Las Vegas, New Mexico and Fort Garland in southwestern Colorado. He then began publishing the Santa Fe Gazette newspaper.
Upon Ceran St. Vrain's death on October 28, 1870 his funeral was attended by more than 2,000 people—including the entire contingent at nearby Fort Union—and given full military honors. St. Vrain is buried in Mora.
References
- Broadhead, Edward H. (1982). Ceran St. Vrain: 1802-1870. Pueblo County Historical Society. ASIN B0006YDACU.
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- Lavender, David (1972). Bent's Fort. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-5753-8.
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