The annals of Fort McKenzie during the next six years find their chief sensational interest in the exploits of Alexander Harvey. Many were the desperate deeds committed by him, and it required all the steadying authority of Culbertson to offset his sinister influence among the Indians. Harvey was, however, an excellent trader, and rendered the company good service. He was left in charge of the post during the occasional temporary absences of Culbertson at Fort Union, and in spite of his many outrages upon the Indians, and even upon the whites, was considered too valuable a man to lose.
Under Culbertson’s prudent management Fort McKenzie had become, next to Union, the most paying establishment on the river. The Company were so pleased with his record that they decided to send him to Fort John, on the Laramie River, to build up the trade of that post, which was doing a losing business on account of bad management. Culbertson protested that it would be a mistake to take him away from McKenzie, but the Company overruled him, and Francis A. Chardon, one of their most experienced clerks, was sent to relieve him.
Chardon was the same manner of man as was Alexander Harvey, and it goes without saying that such a pair traveled rapidly the highway to commercial ruin. Chardon, being new to his duties and new to the post, relied a great deal upon Harvey, who became the real head of the establishment. The natural consequences of this arrangement quickly followed. Some little offenses committed by the Indians, which a prudent trader would have passed by without trouble, were made the excuse for one of the most atrocious crimes ever committed by either white man or Indian upon the other. The plan was to fall upon the unsuspecting Indians the next time they should come in to trade, and to kill all they could and confiscate their property. It only partly succeeded, owing to the failure of the actors to co-operate exactly; but it went far enough to arouse the hatred of the Indians to the highest pitch. They began a war of vengeance, and soon rendered the situation at Fort McKenzie untenable. Chardon accordingly moved down to the Judith River, and erected a new post on the left bank of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of the smaller stream. He named the post Fort Chardon. Fort McKenzie was burned, some say by Chardon himself and some by the Indians. The fort lost its old name and became known as Fort Brulé, or burned fort, a name which still survives in Brulé bottom, where Fort McKenzie stood. The massacre took place early in the winter of 1842–43.[38]