The colonization of America led into an increase in the availability of beaver pelts, which were used to make fine hats all over Europe, and to a resurgence of interest in castoreum as medicine.

Jeff Foott, via Getty Images It’s hard to believe that beavers, the largest rodents in North America, were once on the brink of extinction after mountain men traversed across our undeveloped nation in ...

The beaver pelt, once the currency of a frontier, has had a treacherous history. In the 1840s the fashion for men’s beaver toppers collapsed with the rise of the silk hat, a fashion change that ...

He learned that the money to be made by trading beaver fur was fantastic: a prime pelt that sold for 40 shillings in London could be obtained from willing Native Americans in exchange for trinkets ...