Old occupations · card T

Trapper

A trapper caught wild animals in traps for their furs and meat, as a business, often in remote country.

A trapper made a business of trapping animals for their pelts and meat, such as beaver, and sold the furs to traders. The fur trade between Europeans and Native peoples began early in the settlement of North America.

In mining the word had a different meaning: a trapper was a worker, usually a child, who opened and shut doors in the mine passages to manage the air flow. Check the place and industry before deciding which you have.

As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1910 census
Baptiste Lavoie, 45, Trapper, Canada
How to cite this page

Daily Ancestor. "Trapper." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/trapper. Last checked 2026-10-10.

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