The Adventures of John Colter

Part 1: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Like Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, John Colter was by origin a Virginian. While still a boy his family relocated to present-day Kentucky, near its border with Ohio, where Colter developed into a first-rate frontiersman.

To use modern-day terminology, the Corps of Discovery was a Special Operations Force. In the same way that only a select few are accepted into a unit of the U.S. Army known as the Green Berets, only the best woodsmen and hunters were enlisted into the Special Operations Force commanded by Captains Lewis and Clark.

John Colter was one of the best hunters on the expedition, and belonged to the small group routinely sent out to search for game while the rest were navigating upstream. Once they reached the Columbia River estuary, Colter was among a small group selected to explore the seacoast north of the Columbia into present-day Washington state.

One might think that being a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition would be sufficient achievement for one lifetime, but John Colter had only begun. The expedition was on its return trip down the Missouri River and had just been reunited with Clark's group, which had come down the Yellowstone River to its confluence with the Missouri. The Yellowstone joins the Missouri from the south near the Montana - North Dakota border.

There the expedition met two fur trappers making their way upstream.

The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory was about to set off a rush for beaver furs, and Joseph Dickson of Illinois and Forrest Hancock of Missouri were going to follow the Yellowstone River upstream to trap beaver. They asked Colter to join them, and the captains consented, granting him an honorable discharge.