Their exact ages are given differently in different sources, but the children were small enough that they could be carried when necessary and young enough that the journey they were about to undertake would have been genuinely difficult even under the best possible conditions.

Those conditions would not prove to be the best possible conditions.

John Jacob Astor And The Expedition He Had To Win

To understand why Marie Dorion ended up above the Blue Mountains in January 1814, you have to understand the business logic that put the entire operation in motion: John Jacob Astor’s plan to dominate the Pacific fur trade.

Astor was, by 1810, already extraordinarily wealthy.

He had built his fortune on the fur trade of the Great Lakes and northeastern North America, accumulating capital and connections faster than most of his contemporaries could manage.