John Colter (the first mountain man)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colter

John Colter (c.1774 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813) was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804−1806). Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made during the winter of 1807–1808, when Colter became the first known person of European descent to enter the region now known as Yellowstone National Park, and to see the Teton Mountain Range. Colter spent months alone in the wilderness, and is widely considered to be the first mountain man.

Early years

John Colter was born in Augusta County, Virginia, near the town of Stuarts Draft around 1774. Sometime around 1780, the Colter family moved west and settled near present day Maysville, Kentucky. As a young man, Colter may have served as a ranger under Simon Kenton. He was 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall. The outdoor skills he had developed from this frontier lifestyle impressed Meriwether Lewis, and on October 15, 1803, Lewis offered Colter the rank of private and a pay of five dollars a month.

With Lewis and Clark

Colter, along with George Shannon, Patrick Gass and dog Seamen all joined the expedition while Lewis was waiting for the completion of their vessels in Pittsburgh and nearby Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. Prior to the expedition leaving their basecamp in Pittsburgh, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were away from the main party securing last minute supplies and making other preparations, leaving Sergeant John Ordway in charge. A group of recruits including Colter disobeyed orders from Ordway. Upon hearing of this infraction, Lewis confined Colter and the others to ten days in the base camp. Soon thereafter, Colter was court-martialed after threatening to shoot Ordway. After a review of the situation, Colter was reinstated after he offered an apology and promised to reform.

During the expedition, Colter was considered to be one of the best hunters in the group, and was routinely sent out alone to scout the surrounding countryside for game meat. He was instrumental in helping the expedition find passes through the Rocky Mountains and once located members of the Nez Perce who provided details of rivers and streams that would lead further west. Once at the mouth of the Columbia River, Colter was among a small group selected to venture to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, as well as explore the seacoast north of the Columbia into present-day Washington state.

After traveling thousands of miles, in 1806 the expedition returned to the Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota. There, they encountered Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson, two frontiersmen who were headed into the upper Missouri River country in search of furs. On August 13, 1806, Lewis and Clark permitted Colter to be honorably discharged almost two months early so that he could lead the two trappers back to the region they had explored. After reaching a point where the Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison Rivers meet, known today as Three Forks, Montana, the trio managed to maintain their partnership for only about two months. Colter headed back toward civilization, in 1807, and was near the mouth of the Platte River, when he encountered Manuel Lisa, who was leading a party which included several former members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, towards the Rocky Mountains. Colter once again decided to return to the wilderness, even though he was only a week from reaching St. Louis. At the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn Rivers, Colter helped build Fort Raymond, and was later sent by Lisa to search out the Crow Indian tribe to investigate the opportunities of establishing trade with them.

Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Jackson Hole

Colter left the Fort Raymond in October 1807, and over the course of the winter, he explored the region that later became Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Colter reportedly visited at least one geyser basin, though it is now believed that he most likely was near present-day Cody, Wyoming, which at that time may have had some geothermal activity to the immediate west. Colter probably passed along portions of the shores of Jackson Lake after crossing the Continental Divide near Togwotee Pass or more likely, Union Pass in the northern Wind River Range. Colter then explored Jackson Hole below the Teton Range, later crossing Teton Pass into Pierre's Hole, known today as the Teton Basin in the state of Idaho.[9] After heading north and then east, he is believed to have encountered Yellowstone Lake, another location in which he may have seen geysers and other geothermal features. Colter then proceeded back to Fort Raymond, arriving in March or April 1808. Not only had Colter traveled hundreds of miles, much of the time unguided, he did so in the dead of winter, in a region in which nighttime temperatures in January are routinely −30 °F (−34 °C).

Colter arrived back at Fort Raymond and few believed his reports of geysers, bubbling mudpots and steaming pools of water. His reports of these features were often ridiculed at first, and the region was somewhat jokingly referred to as "Colter's Hell". The area Colter described is now widely believed to be immediately west of Cody, Wyoming, and though little thermal activity exists there today, other reports from around the period when Colter was there also indicate observations similar to those Colter had originally described. His detailed exploration of this region is the first by a white man of what later became the state of Wyoming.

Colter's Run

The following year, Colter teamed up with John Potts, another former member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, once again in the region near Three Forks, Montana. In 1808, he and Potts were both injured fighting the Blackfeet Indians as they led a party of Crow Indians to Fort Raymond. In 1809, another altercation with the Blackfeet resulted in John Potts' death and Colter's capture. While going by canoe up the Jefferson River, Potts and Colter encountered several hundred Blackfeet who demanded they come ashore. Colter went ashore and was disarmed and stripped naked. When Potts then refused to come ashore he was shot and wounded. Potts in his turn shot one of the Indian warriors and died riddled with bullets fired by the Indians on the shore. His body was brought ashore and hacked to pieces. After a council Colter was motioned and told in Crow to leave, and encouraged to run; it soon became apparent that he was running for his life pursued by a large pack of young braves. A fast runner, after several miles Colter was exhausted and bleeding from his nose but far ahead of most of the group with only one assailant still close to him. He then managed to overcome the lone man:

“ Again he turned his head, and saw the savage not twenty yards from him. Determined if possible to avoid the expected blow, he suddenly stopped, turned round, and spread out his arms. The Indian, surprised by the suddenness of the action, and perhaps at the bloody appearance of Colter, also attempted to stop; but exhausted with running, he fell whilst endeavouring to throw his spear, which stuck in the ground, and broke in his hand. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed part, with which he pinned him to the earth, and then continued his flight. ”

—John Bradbury, 1817.

Colter got a blanket from the Indian he had killed. Continuing his run with a pack of Indians following he reached the Madison River, a distance of 5 miles from his start, and, hiding inside a beaver lodge, escaped capture. Emerging at night he climbed and walked for eleven days to a trader's fort on the Little Big Horn.

In 1810, Colter assisted in the construction of another fort located at Three Forks, Montana. After returning from gathering fur pelts, he discovered that two of his partners had been killed by the Blackfeet. This event convinced Colter to leave the wilderness for good and he returned to St. Louis before the end of 1810. He had been away from civilization for almost six years.

The Colter Stone

Sometime between 1931 and 1933, an Idaho farmer named William Beard and his son discovered a rock carved into the shape of a man's head while clearing a field in Tetonia, Idaho, which is immediately west of the Teton Range. The rhyolite lava rock is 13 inches (330 mm) long, 8 inches (200 mm) wide and 4 inches (100 mm) thick and has the words "John Colter" carved on the right side of the face and the number "1808" on the left side and has been dubbed the "Colter Stone". The stone was reportedly purchased from the Beards in 1933 by A.C. Lyon, who presented it to Grand Teton National Park in 1934. Fritiof Fryxell, noted mountain climber of numerous Teton Range peaks, geologist and Grand Teton National Park naturalist, concluded that the stone had weathering that indicated that the inscriptions were likely made in the year indicated. Fryxell also believed that the Beards were not familiar with John Colter or his explorations. The stone has not been authenticated to have been carved by Colter, however, and may have instead been the work of later expeditions, possibly as a hoax, by members of the Hayden Survey in 1877. If the stone is ever proven to be an actual carving made by Colter, in the year inscribed, it would coincide with the period he is known to have been in the region, and that he did cross the Teton Range and descend into Idaho, as descriptions he dictated to William Clark indicate.

Final years

After returning to St. Louis, Colter married a woman named Sallie and purchased a farm near New Haven, Missouri. Somewhere around 1810, he visited with William Clark, his old commander from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and provided detailed reports of his explorations since they had last met. From this information, Clark created a map which was the most comprehensive map produced of the region of the explorations for the next seventy-five years. During the War of 1812, Colter enlisted and fought with Nathan Boone's Rangers. Sources are unclear about when John Colter died or the exact cause of death. In one case, after suddenly turning ill, Colter is reported to have died of jaundice on May 7, 1812 and was buried near New Haven, Missouri on private land. Other sources indicate he died on November 22, 1813.

Legacy

A number of locations in northwestern Wyoming have been named after him, notably, Colter Bay on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park and Colter Peak in the Absaroka Mountains in Yellowstone National Park.

A plaque commemorating Colter was displayed at a roadside pulloff on U.S. Route 340 just east of Stuarts Draft, near his birthplace. When the road was widened in 1998, the plaque was moved just north of the intersection of 340 and Route 608.

The original script for director Cornel Wilde's 1966 movie, The Naked Prey, was largely based on Colter being pursued by Blackfoot Indians in Wyoming.

Roger Zelazny and Gerald Hausman meshed the stories of John Colter and Hugh Glass in the 1994 novel Wilderness.

John Colter Sex: M Birth: ABT 1774 in Staunton,Augusta County, Virginia Death: 7 MAY 1812 in Sullen Springs, St. Louis,Missouri

Facts about this person: BurialMay 07, 1812 New Haven, Franklin County, Missouri

Marriage 1 Sallie Loucy b: WFT Est 1769-1793

Married: 1810

Children

Has Children Hiram Jefferson Colter b: 1811 in Gasconade County, Missouri Has No Children Evalina Colter b: WFT Est 1794-1813

John Colter's exploits after the conclusion of the Expedition exceeded in danger and personal bravery anything he experienced while on the Tour of Discovery. He was born about 1775, another Virginian, born in Augusta County on the frontier. His father was Joseph Colter and his mother the former Ellen Shields, which makes one wonder whether Colter and John Shields were distant relatives.1

About 1779 his family moved to Limestone, a landing point on the Ohio River above Cincinnati and now Maysville, Kentucky. Little is known of his childhood and early adult years, but Maysville, like Louisville, was on the frontier. He would have grown up as a woodsman and hunter. Lewis, in one letter to Clark from Cincinnati, mentions that on his river journey he had taken on two young men who were interested in joining the Expedition. Lewis was giving them a trial.2

One of these young men was John Colter, then about 29. [It is also possible that Colter had journeyed to Louisville and was part of the group of recruits with Clark waiting for Lewis's arrival.] He has been described as five feet, ten inches tall, somewhat shy, with blue eyes and a quick mind. The West and the mountains obviously captivated him. As the Expedition, on its return, was nearing the Mandan villages, it met two Americans coming up the Missouri, Forrest Hancock and Joseph Dixon, who were on a fur-trapping expedition. These two perhaps sensed Colter's fascination for the West and decided that a man who had been all the way to the Pacific was just the third party they needed. Clark noted in his journal on August 15, 1806: "Colter, one of our men expressed a desire to join some trappers ... who offered to become shares with him & furnish traps &c. The offer was a very advantageous one to him." He was allowed to go provided no one else would expect to get such permission and all agreed.3

So now, only six weeks or less from St. Louis, Colter headed back from whence he had come. They trapped along the Yellowstone until the spring of 1807, but it proved unprofitable, the Indians were unfriendly, and disagreements arose among the partners. In the spring of 1807 Colter headed back to St. Louis and this time at the mouth of the Platte met a trapping party headed by Manuel Lisa headed for the Yellowstone. Lisa's enthusiasm had been fired by the stories he heard from the Lewis and Clark people on their arrival in St. Louis.4

And once again Colter turned back with Lisa's party. They arrived at the Yellowstone in October 1807 and built a small fort and trading post at the mouth of the Bighorn River. Lisa wanted to encourage the Crows to come there with furs to trade, so he sent Colter on a 500-mile mission to find the Crows in their winter camps. It was on this epic journey that he discovered the thermal wonders of what is now Yellowstone National Park and passed through Jackson Hole - as far as is known, the first white man to see these national treasures; certainly the first to report them.

Later, in the summer of 1808, he joined the Crow and Flathead Indians on an expedition up the Yellowstone to the Three Forks in Montana. Here the group was attacked by the Blackfeet - grumpy as usual - and Colter was forced to fight against them. Colter was wounded in the leg and returned to Lisa's fort to rest and recover. Then in early fall he and John Potts, another former member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition who had joined Lisa's venture, went trapping up the Jefferson, or perhaps the Madison, and tried - unsuccessfully - to avoid the Blackfeet. When the two trappers were discovered, Potts was "riddled" after he returned rifle fire. Colter, not so rash, received a different treatment. He was stripped of all his clothing - even his moccasins - and sent running while the Blackfeet pursued him.5

That must have been one of the most amazing foot races of all time - Colter running for his life with a horde of Indians in pursuit. The run was perhaps six miles and blood began gushing from Colter's nose. Finally, when only one pursuer was left, Colter wheeled toward the Indian and startled him so that he stumbled as he attempted to thrust his spear into the trapper. Colter seized the spear, pinned the Indian to the ground with it, snatched the warrior's blanket and fled toward the river, plunged into the icy water and hid under some driftwood. The Blackfeet searched for him until dark, but never found him.

With nothing but the Indian blanket in the chill fall weather, Colter set out for Lisa's fort - 300 miles away - and made it. Unbelievably, the next spring he returned to the same spot where his ordeal had begun. He wanted to retrieve the traps he had dropped in the water when the Blackfeet appeared. Once again the Blackfeet discovered him; he barely escaped in a hail of bullets. Then, in the early spring of 1810, Colter led a group of 32 trappers up the Yellowstone toward Three Forks where they planned to construct a trading post, which - amazingly - they did in the heart of hostile Indian country. The Blackfeet were constantly harassing the group and by late April Colter finally had enough, and returned to St. Louis - the first time in six years he had been in "civilization." By the way, I was amazed to run across a long account of Colter's adventures in a Louisville newspaper of 1885, copied from a New York newspaper, but with no indication of his Kentucky background.6

Of course, he hadn't yet received his pay for the Expedition and Meriwether Lewis, who held the funds, had departed this world in October 1809, probably by his own hand. Colter was forced to obtain the services of an attorney to get his money. Colter remained in Missouri, married a girl named Sally, lived on a farm near the town of Dundee, and became the father of a son named Hiram. A party of fur trappers going up the Missouri in the spring of 1811 stopped at Colter's home to ask questions about the West. One of the group later wrote that Colter seemed to want to go with them, but did not feel he should because of his recent marriage.7

It was just as well. John Colter died not long after in November 1813 of jaundice, not yet 40 years old. There is some confusion about his burial place. One version is that he was buried in the cemetery of the Fee Fee Baptist Church at Bridgeton, Missouri, near Colter's farm. The records of the church contain an entry: "John Colter - fur trader with Manuel Lisa." Supposedly there was once a marker there bearing Colter's name, but it is not there now.8

The other version is that he was buried in a small cemetery atop a hill near Dundee, which came to be called Tunnel Hill when a railroad bored its way through in the 19th century. In 1926 the railroad, to improve its line, excavated a wide cut through the hill. As the steamshovels ate into the hillside, a workman noticed more than dirt being crunched. There were bones and the remains of rude wooden coffins. If John Colter was buried there, he is now distributed along the right of way of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.9

Colter's son Hiram was the father of eight children. In 1926 many of John Colter's descendants still lived in the Dundee area and probably do today.10 They carry the family name of the person whom Bernard DeVoto, that prolific writer on the westward movement, called "the first of the mountain men."

FOOTNOTES

Charles G. Clarke, The Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: A Biographical Roster of the Fifty-one Members (Glendale, Calif., Arthur H. Clark Co., 1970), 46.

Ibid., 54. Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 124-125.

Burton Harris, John Colter: His Years in the Rockies, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952), 58-59. Barbara Kubik, "John Colter-One of Lewis and Clark's Men," We Proceeded On, 9 (May-June 1983), 11.

Harris, Colter, 121-123. Kubik, "John Colter," 13.

Kubik, "John Colter," 13.

Harris, Colter, 132, 140-147. Louisville Commercial, February 10, 1885, 10.

Jackson, Letters, 567. Harris, Colter, 157. Kubik, "John Colter," 14.

Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 47. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 27, 1926, reprinted in We Proceeded On, 9 (May-June 1983), 15.

Ibid., 15.