George Drouillard (1773-1810)

George Drouillard (1773-1810). . George Drouillard, the son of a Shawnee mother and French-Canadian father, was one of the most valued members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Meriwether Lewis noted in a letter to Secretary of War Henry Dearborn that Drouillard was "a man of much merit; he has been peculiarly useful from his knowledge of the common (sign) language of gesticulation, and his uncommon skill as a hunter and woodsman." Discharged from the Corps of Discovery in October, 1806, Drouillard partnered with St. Louis fur trader Manuel Lisa in 1807 to further trap and trade on the upper Missouri. Upon returning to St. Louis, Drouillard described his explorations of the Bighorn region to William Clark, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who added the new information to his map of the West. , Three year later in the employment of the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, Drouillard found himself once more poised at the headwaters of the Missouri River. As the company men, under Pierre Menard, constructed a trading post between the Jefferson and Madison Rivers, the trappers drew constant attention from the Blackfeet who resented their presence. Chafing at the constraints the ever-present Blackfeet placed on the trappers Drouillard and a party of men from the post set out to trap the upper Jefferson. After two days of successful trapping on his own, Drouillard and two others left the main camp on the third day. When they did not return, a search party discovered the mutilated bodies of all three men less than three miles from camp. The physical evidence indicated that Drouillard "made a most obstinate resistance" before being overwhelmed. , George Drouillard, a "man of much merit," lies buried in an unmarked grave somewhere near the banks of Jefferson River.