The fur coming from Kamchatka was the cause of the Russian discovery and conquest.

For many years the trade was conducted by individual merchants from Siberia.

The Russian American Company attempted to control it early in the present century, and drove many competitors from the fields.

It received the most determined opposition from American merchants, and in 1860 it abandoned Petropavlovsk, its business there being profitless.
In 1866 I found the fur trade of Kamchatka in the control of three merchants: W.H.Boardman, of Boston, J.W.Fluger, of Hamburg, and Alexander Phillipeus, of St.Petersburg.All of them had houses in Petropavlovsk, and each had from one to half a dozen agencies or branches elsewhere.

To judge by appearances, Mr.Boardman had the lion's share of the trade.