Later Years
Moving to St. Louis in 1826, he married a white woman Susan Bosseron, the daughter of Charles Bosseron. That same year, while trading at Fort Armstrong, he and Davenport founded a settlement along the Mississippi River known as Stephenson. Along with the town of Farnhamsburg, the two settlements would eventually become the site of Rock Island, Illinois. He also founded Muscatine, Iowa, after leaving the Rock Island area some years later.
He and Ramsey Crooks absorbed the Columbia Fur Company in 1827 and, with former Columbia traders such as Kenneth MacKenzie, the two founded the American Fur Company's Upper Missouri Outfit. He remained in charge of the rival trading post near Fort Edwards and, in 1829, he founded another trading post several miles upriver at present-day Keokuk, Iowa which was run by Mark Aldrich.
He died of cholera in St. Louis on October 23, 1832. He reportedly survived only two hours after having been attacked with that then new and fatal disease. His wife and child died of consumption a few years later. His close friend and former trading partner Ramsey Crooks wrote in a letter to Pierre Chouteau, Jr. regarding news of his death.
| “ | Poor Farnham; he has paid the debt of nature after a life of uncommon activity and endless exposure. Peace to his manes! He was one of the best meaning, but the most sanguine men I almost ever met with. During all the ravages of the pestilence here, and the unexpected rapidity with which some of my friends were hurried to their long account. I never felt anything like the sensation I experienced upon hearing of my honest friend's death, for I did not know he was at St. Louis, and thought him safe in some part of the wilderness. | ” |
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