Out of Arkansas - John Colter

The majority of this short biography of John Colter is from a paper by George H. Yater originally presented at the 1991 annual meeting of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. The 1966 movie Naked Prey is loosely based on the true story of John Colter's run from the Blackfoot Indians in 1809. The movie is set in Colonial Africa of the 1860s.

Colter, born in present-day Maysville, Kentucky ca. 1775, spent his youth as a woodsman and hunter, He's described as five-foot-ten, somewhat shy, with blue eyes and a quick mind. In 1803 he was recruited for the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806), to map and explore the new territory of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, which nearly doubled our new nation's size.

President Thomas Jefferson authorized an expedition up the Missouri River to its source in the western mountains and beyond to the Pacific Ocean, hoping to discover a northwest passage, a water route across the country. Jefferson chose his first cousin, Meriwether Lewis, as leader of the expedition, who chose his childhood friend and neighbor, William Clark, who chose the crew, including 29-year-old John Colter.

The roundtrip of the Lewis and Clark Expedition took two years, 10 months and four days for everyone except Charles Floyd who died of appendicitis, and Colter who was permitted to leave. He was allowed to go provided no one else would expect to get such permission. All agreed, and Colter, only six weeks away from St. Louis, left with two American trappers headed upstream to the unexplored Yellowstone River.

They trapped along the Yellowstone until the spring of 1807, but lousy profits, unfriendly locals, and on-going disagreements with his partners convinced Colter to head back to St. Louis alone. However, at the mouth of the Platte River he met John Potts, a former member of the Expedition who had joined a trapping party headed by Manuel Lisa. They were bound for the Yellowstone, and Colter turned back upstream 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 trade with the Crow Indians, and he sent Colter on a 500-mile mission to find them in their winter camps. It was on this epic journey that Colter found the thermal wonders of what is now Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole (Grand Teton National Park). He was the first "mountain man" to see and record these national treasures.

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, where the group was attacked by Blackfoot Indians. Colter was forced to fight against them. He was wounded in the leg and returned to Lisa's fort to rest and recover.

In the early fall of 1808 Colter and John Potts were trapping at Jefferson River, or perhaps the Madison, and trying unsuccessfully to avoid the Blackfoot. When the two trappers were discovered, Potts returned their rifle fire, and was "riddled." Colter, not so rash as to shoot back, was not blown out of his moccasins, but he was stripped of all his clothing, including his moccasins, given a generous head start, and then was pursued by the likes of the hounds from Hell for about six grueling miles

Blood began gushing from Colter's nose. Finally, when only one Blackfoot was in sight, Colter wheeled toward him and startled him so badly that the Blackfoot stumbled as he tried to spear Colter. Colter grabbed the spear, pinned the Indian to the ground with it, snatched the warrior's blanket and fled to the river, plunging into the icy water to hide under some driftwood.

The rest of the Blackfoot searched for him until dark, but never found him.

With nothing but an Indian blanket in the chill fall, Colter set out for Lisa's fort -- 300 miles away -- and made it. 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. Not amazingly at all, the Blackfoot would not give up, so Colter did, returning in late April 1810 to St. Louis, the fist time in six years to be back in "civilization."

Colter married and had children who carry his name forward today. He died of natural causes in 1813.

Bernard DeVoto, a prolific writer on the westward movement, called John Colter "the first of the mountain men." Amen.