Jean Baptiste Charbonneau - Death

Death

It is not clear why Charbonneau left Auburn, California. Before leaving he visited the Placer Herald newspaper and visited with an editor, who wrote later in his obituary, "...he was about returning to familiar scenes". Some of those "familiar scenes" may have been where he had lived and worked as a mountain man east of the Great Basin. His destination also may have been the Owyhee Mountains, where rich placer deposits were discovered in May, 1863. Or perhaps he sought to reach Alder Gulch near Virginia City, Montana, because it had produced $31 million in gold by late 1865. Other possible destinations were the Bannock, Montana gold strikes or—as noted above—the mines at Silver City (formerly Ruby City), Delamar or Boonville.

His route and travel method likely took him on a stagecoach over Donner Summit and east along the well-traveled Humboldt River Trail to Winnemucca, Nevada, then north to army Camp McDermitt near the Idaho border. Passing the camp in rugged terrain, the men reached an Owyhee River crossing at present-day Rome, Oregon, where an apparent accident occurred and Charbonneau went into the river. The accident's cause is unknown, but there are several possibilities. He may have been on a stagecoach operated by the Boise-Silver City-Winnemucca stage company that began its route in 1866 out of Camp McDermitt and in crossing the river, the coach sank. Or he may have been on horseback and fallen off the river bank or slipped out of the saddle while crossing. The Owyhee River in snowmelt may have turned into whitewater. Other possibilities are he was injured on the land journey, inhaled alkali dust, or fell ill from drinking contaminated water.

The ill Charbonneau was taken to Inskip Station in Danner, Oregon, built in 1865, about 33 miles (53 km) from the river and west of Jordan Valley. It is now a ghost town. The former stage coach, mail stop and general store served travelers to Oregon and the California gold fields. It had its own well, and Charbonneau may have deteriorated from drinking the water. After his death there, his body was taken one-quarter mile north and interred at 42.9518°N 117.339°W.

Charbonneau died on May 16, 1866. A death notice was sent by an unknown writer, likely one of two fellow travelers on the journey east, to the Owyhee Avalanche newspaper and it said he died of pneumonia. This is the first documented evidence of his death. The Placer Herald obituary writer opined that he succumbed to the infamous "Mountain Fever", to which many illnesses in the West were attributed.

His grave site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is on 1 acre (4,000 m2) of land. (It is near the Anderson General Store, which is intact and appears to be in 1940s condition.) Now contained within the 6,000 acres (24 km2) Ruby Ranch, the site was donated to Malheur County, Oregon by the owners. The gravesite has three historical markers. In 1971 the Malheur County Daughters of the American Revolution placed a marker. In 1973 the Oregon Historical Society installed a marker, reading:

Oregon History

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

1805–1866

This site marks the final resting place of the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Born to Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau at Fort Mandan (North Dakota), on February 11, 1805, Baptiste and his mother symbolized the peaceful nature of the "Corps of Discovery." Educated by Captain William Clark at St. Louis, Baptiste at 18 traveled to Europe where he spent six years becoming fluent in English, German, French and Spanish. Returning to American in 1829, he ranged the far west for nearly four decades as mountain man, guide, interpreter, magistrate, and forty-niner. In 1866, he left the California gold fields for a new strike in Montana, contracted pneumonia enroute, reached "Inskips Ranche" here, and died on May 16, 1866.

In 2000 a third marker was dedicated by the Lemhi-Shoshone tribe. As the son of Sacagawea, a Northern Shoshone who lived in the Lemhi Valley, Charbonneau was considered one of their people.

Earlier in the twentieth century, some Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard argued that Charbonneau died and was buried at the Shoshone Wind River Indian Reservation. Dr. Charles Eastman, a Santee Sioux, did research that attempted to establish that Charbonneau's mother Sacagawea died at the reservation on April 9, 1884. Some believe that Charbonneau died in 1885 and was buried next to her. Memorials in their names were erected in 1933 at Ft. Washakie. Eastman did his research in 1924–25, interpreting oral history. But that tradition has been superseded by documentary evidence for both Charbonneau and Sacagawea.

In 1964 an edited nineteenth-century journal was published that included the information that Sacagawea died much earlier, on December 20, 1812, of a "putrid fever" (possible following childbirth) at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri River. Four 19th-century documents support this earlier date, including a statement by William Clark years after the 1805–07 Lewis and Clark expedition that "Secarjawea was dead."