When Farnham and Darling reached Fort Armstrong it was reported that Farnham had declared his intention to commence trading with the Indians three miles below that place. When Maj. Morgan, in command at Fort Armstrong, heard this he put Farnham and his crew under arrest and sent them to St. Louis accompanied by a guard of soldiers under the command of W. S. Blair.
The matter of the arrest of Farnham and Darling, together with other unjust treatment given the American Fur Company, was presented to the President of the United States, and suit was promptly brought by the company against Col. Chambers. A verdict for $5000.00 damages was recovered.[1]
In March, 1819, Farnham started up the Missouri river to trade, at which time Ramsay Crooks wrote him "There is nothing to prevent your going into the Missouri country now with your Canadians."
Apparently he was relieved from the trade on the upper Missouri for in 1821 and 1822 he was again assigned to the trade on the Mississippi. The next year he was with the Sac Outfit with headquarters at Fort Armstrong, in partnership with Col. George Davenport, under the firm name of Farnham and Davenport. They had a store on Rock Island and were, of course, agents for the American Fur Company. They built the first house on the mainland in the vicinity of Fort Armstrong, which became the nucleus of a settlement that later sprung up and was named Farnhamsburg. Unfortunately the place has ceased to bear his name, being now called Rock Island.
Farnham made many visits to St. Louis, in the interest of the American Fur Company, and served as witness to the treaty between the United States and the Kansas Indians in 1825. On one of these visits he met pretty Susan Bosseron, daughter of Charles Bosseron, an early French settler of wealth and respectibility. Their mar-
- ↑ Letters of Thomas Forsythe and William Clark in Mo. Hist. Soc. MSS.; Wisconsin Historical Society collections, vols. 19 and 20.
