Joseph Robidoux IV

Of French Canadian descent, he was born in St. Louis, as were his mother and most of his brothers, when it was a predominately French-speaking colonial town.

36) In 1799, at the age of 16, Joseph began accompanying fur traders to the upper Missouri River, where they traded with a variety of Native American tribes.

His early success there annoyed other traders, who engaged Indians to harass the young man and drive him from the area.

He operated his trading post in the Council Bluffs area until 1822, when the American Fur Company bought him out and offered him $1,000 a year to refrain from competing with them.

During the years of the War of 1812 and hostilities with British forces along the northern frontier, the Robidoux brothers had to pull their activities back to the St. Louis area.

Built prior to 1830, Robidoux's home was located on the northwest corner of 2nd & Jules streets in Saint Joseph.

Robidoux prospered in the years between 1830 and 1843, employing as many as 20 ethnic French men to engage in trade with the Native Americans to the west of his post.

Faced with the possibilities of more encroachment, the tribes in 1836 agreed to sell what is now the northwest corner of Missouri for $7,500 to the federal government in a deal at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The transaction, called the Platte Purchase, added an area almost the combined size of Rhode Island and Delaware to the State of Missouri.

[5] In 1843, Robidoux hired Frederick W. Smith and Simeon Kemper to design a town for him on his land around the trading post.

But, Robidoux preferred Smith's plan, as it featured more narrow streets, thus leaving more land for him to sell in the form of lots.

His early trading offices are known as Robidoux Row; the complex is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Rabideau, Clyde M. Beaver Tales, Trappers, Traders, Mountain Men & Scoundrels, 2002, Joseph Robidoux, The Family Patriarch, 2005, Descendants of Andre Robidou, 2011, Heartlnut Publishing