John Colter - "Mad Man" and "Colter's Hell"

For some reason Colter was sent out to find new trapping routes, and reach agreements with Blackfoot Indians.  Colter started out on foot alone

His route took him through much of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho country.  He crossed the Continental Divide at Union Divide and visited the Yellowstone Park area.  He came across steaming geysers and bubbling mud.  The tales he told of these gave him the name "madman" and were dismissed as deranged hallucinations.  His discovery was know as "Colter's Hell."

Without knowing it, Colter had become the stereotype of a mountain man.  He survived alone in the wilderness, killed his own game, trapped to make his own clothes, endured extreme cold and heat to become a legend. 

Colter escaped death at least twice.  In 1808 he was captured by the Blackfoot, his clothes taken, and told to run for his life while warriors pursued him.  He made the river six miles away, hid underwater until night fall when he made his way away in the darkness.

In 1810, Colter was the only one of six who survived a Blackfoot ambush, to which he said, "If only God will let me off, I will leave this country and never come back again."  He immediately went back to St. Louis where he died in poverty in 1813.

Next time...John Jacob Astor
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  On March 17, 1804,  Jim Bridger is born in Richmond, Virginia. Twenty years later, Bridger, heading West along the routes Lewis and Clark pioneered, became one of the greatest mountain men of the 19th century.  For more on Jim Bridger search this blog...