George Davenport partnered with Russell
Farnham in 1824. He couldn’t have chosen a more qualified person for his
growing enterprise. 
Russell Farnham
John Jacob Astor was the first to capitalize on the Lewis and Clark’s western explorations. He sent two expeditions to the Pacific coast in the summer of 1807. Captain Jonathan Thorn sailed around Cape Horn to the Pacific coast. Astor selected 23-year-old Russell Farnham to lead the cross-country expedition, following Lewis and Clark’s footsteps. Farnham handpicked a crew of seventy frontiersmen and started up the Missouri River to its headwaters.
The
expedition wintered at the mouth of the Milk River. When spring came, they
pushed on to the Columbia River. By the time Farnham reached his objective in
October 1808, just seven men remained of the seventy who started.
Unfortunately, Farnham arrived at the designated meeting place just in time to see the ships sail away. He waited three weeks, hoping they would return for him, then set off on foot across the country to make the return journey. By the time he reached his previous wintering spot on the Milk River, Farnham was the only man left.
