Headwaters Speaker Series
Author: Brenda Phillips
Headwaters Speaker Series
Brenda Phillips
We spent a beautiful Montana summer evening at Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks. The Park is sponsoring the Summer Speaker Series. This week, we were enlightened and entertained by Duane Bucci, who talked on the life of John Colter. Duane has lived in Montana his whole life and currently lives at Ulm, MT, near the First Peoples Buffalo Jump. He is the director of the Lewis and Clark National Trail Interpretive Center in Great Falls.
Duane spoke to us dressed as a frontiersman, in clothes that were authentic for the 1800s. In Montana history, John Colter is known for his famous run through the headwaters area, near Three Forks, to escape the Indians who were chasing him. But Duane took us back to the beginning when John Colter was born in 1774 and raised in Kentucky. In 1803, John responded to a newspaper article in Kentucky, where he enlisted in the army and joined the Lewis & Clark Expedition’s Corps of Discovery as a hunter. The Army issued them 12 pairs of boots and several uniforms for the trip. When they encountered Indians, they would trade with them. Soon he didn’t have any boots left and took to wearing moccasins. He made his own moccasins and usually he wore out two pairs each day.
By 1804, the expedition left Mandan, ND to head into the Montana territory. Colter was sent out scouting for game to feed the soldiers. He learned to communicate with the Indians and traded for a horse for the expedition.
Duane showed us a cat-o'-nine tails that was used by the military to discipline the men who didn’t follow the rules. If you were sentenced to 100 lashings, you got 25 lashings each night at dusk, for 4 days. He also explained the gauntlet, where the soldiers would line up in 2 rows and would use willow sticks to whip an offender who was led down the gauntlet, as another type of discipline. For me, it sounds like a good reason not to disobey the rules!
The Lewis & Clark Expedition was over 8000 miles. Colter was a hunter and scout on the expedition until they returned to Mandan, ND, in 1806, where he requested to leave the expedition. He went to work for a Fur trading company. He remembered the beavers were plentiful at the headwaters, so he and a fellow trapper returned to the Three Forks area. They found abundant animals but had to work in the dark of night to avoid the Indians in the area. One night the traps were so full of animals it took them all night to retrieve their catch.
As they were finishing up that morning, the Indians surrounded them and killed his partner. They took him back to their camp. They stripped him of his clothes and told him to run for his life. They gave him a head start, but when he heard the noise of them yelling and chasing him, he decided he had better run faster. After a while, he wasn’t hearing the large crowd chasing him, so he took time to look back and there was only one brave chasing him. He killed the one. Then it dawned on him he better run because then the others catch up and find out he killed their friend, he’d be in trouble.
He ran about 250 miles, in nine days, to Fort Raymond at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers. There are several accounts in history about John Colter arriving at Fort Raymond naked in October 1810.
After that, he returned to St Louis and married. By this time, Merriweather Lewis had passed away, so he had to sue the estate of Lewis to get his pay for the expedition. Colter was to be paid $5 a day and a land grant. He never got any land and only $300 of the $678 that was due to him. John Colter passed away from jaundice in 1812.
The Three Forks area has a fun run to commemorate John Colter’s “Run for your life” in October.
Check out Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Missouri Headwaters State Park for a schedule of upcoming speakers.
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PhotoCredit: Brenda Phillips
Image 1 Caption: Duane Bucci telling stories of John Colter at Missouri Headwaters State Park
Photo Credit: Brenda Phillips
Image 2 Caption: Duane Bucci in authentic clothing as he talked about John Colter, Montana fur trappers and scout
Photo Credit: Brenda Phillips
Image 3 Caption: Duane Bucci answering questions about a replica rifle that would be typical of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
Photo Credit: Brenda Phillips
