This period opens with the death of the dominant figure of the Missouri River trade from the beginning of the century, especially from the date of the Louisiana Purchase, Manuel Lisa, who made his last voyage in 1820 and then closed the epoch, and his own earthly account, forever. He may have had all the faults charged against him, but nevertheless he seems not to have committed any grave offence, and he possessed commanding ability, so that his life appears to balance well. In a letter to General Clark, Superintendent of the Western Tribes, resigning the position of sub agent, which he had held for three years—1814 to 1817,—he explains his influence over the natives by his fair dealing and by his kindness to them. He gave them pumpkin, potato, and other seed; his blacksmiths worked for them without charge; he lent them traps, and his forts were the refuge of the old and feeble. He was the most active man of his period. But the beginning of this decade saw another active man come to the top, the man who started the actual breaking of the Rocky Mountain Wilderness, and who, with his employees and the "free" trappers and freebooters who followed their lead, soon penetrated the secret places of Mexican territory. This was William H. Ashley, a brigadier-general of militia in Missouri, the first lieutenant-governor, and later twice a member of Congress from the newly created State. He was a Virginian who came to St. Louis in 1802, the year before the transfer of Louisiana. He was then twenty-four, a man of education, of great executive ability, and of unfaltering courage. He was forty-eight when the third decade of the century opened, with which his name is so closely associated that it might almost be called the Ashley decade. Not that he was the first to cross the mountain barrier into Mexican territory, for Etienne Provost (Provo) had gone to Salt Lake in the very first year, and there were others, of whom little or no record is preserved. Samuel Adams Ruddock, in 1821, went from Council Bluffs to Santa Fé and thence north, apparently about on the line of Escalante's old trail, to Salt Lake valley, performing a memorable journey, but Ashley was the master organiser who dealt the obstinate Wilderness its death-blow, battering a permanent breach that was quickly widened. In 1822 he built a fort on the Yellowstone. With twenty-eight men, the following year, he started to make his first attack on the frontal mountains. The Arikaras by this time had more than ever determined to obstruct the entrance of the whites into their territory and sharply repelled the company, killing fourteen of the party and wounding ten. Such an overwhelming defeat would have completely vanquished many leaders, but Ashley, who had a large investment in this venture, did not falter, and next year, 1824, when the time came to move on he was ready, and they marched to success.