Family history states that Robert Stuart was born in Strathyre, in the historic parish of Balquhidder, but grew up in Callander, both towns in
Perthshire, about northwest of
Stirling,
Scotland. Around 1807, he joined an uncle,
David Stuart, in
Montreal to work as a clerk in the
fur trade for the Canadian North West Company. In 1810, three years later, he and his uncle had been recruited into Astor's Pacific Fur Company. Stuart was age 25 when he sailed aboard a Pacific Fur Company ship, the
Tonquin, on its voyage to the
Falkland Islands. He held a pistol to the head of the ship's captain,
Jonathan Thorn, when Thorn attempted to leave the Falkland Islands without Stuart's uncle David, another of Astor's partners. They sailed around
Cape Horn and up the
West coast of North America to the
Columbia River. The
Tonquin crossed the
Columbia Bar and established
Fort Astoria (located in modern
Astoria, Oregon) in May 1811. After leaving supplies and traders at the newly created outpost, the ship and crew traveled north to
Clayoquot Sound on
Vancouver Island. The
Tonquin crew engaged in commercial negotiations with members of the
Tla-o-qui-aht nation in June. An altercation arose, with the entire crew killed except a single hired translator and the ship destroyed. After the incident, the traders had to make arrangements to communicate with Astor, since they had no idea when a ship might call at Fort Astoria. Thus, Stuart accompanied an overland expedition of seven men carrying word of the
Tonquin's fate to
St. Louis. A larger party ascended the Columbia River as far as it could, procuring horses from Indians as they got further inland. The group split near the future
Wallula, Washington, and Stuart's mounted party rode south into the general vicinity of future
Pendleton, Oregon. The expedition then headed east and southeast, and entered the future
Idaho on August 12, 1812. They remained on the west and south side of the
Snake River, observing the mouth of the
Boise River on the opposite side on the 15th. Continuing along the south side of the Snake, they reached the
American Falls on September 5,
Soda Springs on the 9th and arrived near the Idaho border on the 13th. During this trek from the Pendleton area, Stuart's party followed what would later become perhaps the most important leg of the
Oregon Trail route across Oregon and Idaho. However, after crossing into
Wyoming they made a major detour away from the future trail. The description in Stuart's journal shows that they looped (“as the crow flies”) north into the
Teton Valley in Idaho and crossed
Teton Pass into
Jackson Hole. They then made their way south, reaching the general vicinity of the future Oregon Trail in Wyoming on October 19. Without the detour, they could have arrived at the same location within a matter of days after leaving Idaho for the first time. They then turned northeast and crossed
South Pass on the
Continental Divide two days later. Stuart wrote, “The summit of this mountain, whose form appears to be owing to some volcanic eruption, is flat, and exhibits a plain of more than 3 miles square (7.8 km2)” "In 1811, the overland party of
Mr. Astor's expedition [from St. Louis to Fort Astoria], under the command of Mr.
Wilson P. Hunt, of
Trenton, New Jersey, although numbering sixty well armed men, found the Indians so very troublesome in the country of the
Yellowstone River, that the party of seven persons who left Astoria toward the end of June, 1812, considering it dangerous to pass again by the route of 1811, turned toward the southeast as soon as they had crossed the main chain of the
Rocky Mountains, and, after several days' journey, came through the celebrated 'South Pass' in the month of November, 1812. ...Pursuing from thence an easterly course, they fell upon the
River Platte of the Missouri, where they passed the winter and reached St. Louis in April, 1813." On July 21, 1813, about a month after he met with Astor, Stuart married Emma Elizabeth Sullivan, a native of New York City. They would have nine children together. In 1833 he is mentioned as working for the American Fur Company, in a treaty at Chicago ceding land from the
Chippewa,
Ottawa and
Potawatomi tribes, as apparently a friend to the tribes. It is not entirely clear when Stuart began to invest in
Detroit real estate, but around 1835–1836 he built a home and soon moved his family there. He was also Treasurer of the State of Michigan from 1840 to 1841. He died on October 28, 1848, and is buried at the historic
Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit. ==Legacy==