Who Was John Colter? Little is known of John Colter’s life prior to his joining the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803, and, even then it’s still pretty fuzzy. Colter likely wasn’t literate, so what we know about him comes from the writings and reports of others. He was born between 1770 and 1775 in the Colony of Virginia and, in 1780, his family moved to present-day Kentucky. Here Colter learned the outdoor survival skills that impressed Meriwether Lewis enough to hire him as a member of the Corps of Discovery. As a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, one of Colter’s first significant acts was threatening to shoot fellow corpsman Sergeant John Ordway, which happened even before the group left its base camp at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers north of St. Louis. Colter was court martialed and faced expulsion, but after apologizing and promising to reform, he was kept on. For two years and thousands of miles, Colter was one of the Corps’ best hunters and route finders, sometimes persuading Native Americans to work as guides for the expedition. He was one of the few corpsmen who got to see the Pacific Ocean after reaching the mouth of the Columbia River. In August 1806, Colter was honorably discharged from the expedition, and he set off on his own explorations of present-day Montana and Wyoming. For four years, he explored solo, guided others, trapped, and traded. It was the eight months of winter he spent alone in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem that he is best known for and that make the argument for him being the first “mountain man,” a particularly adventurous and skilled breed of Rocky Mountain explorer that peaked in number and popularity in the 1840s. Colter returned to Missouri in 1810 and, within a year, was married to Sallie (or Sarah, or Sally) Lucie (or Lucy). The couple had a son, Hiram, and settled on the Missouri River. One of their neighbors was an elderly Daniel Boone. Colter died of an unknown illness in 1812. JH
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WINTER 2021 JACKSON HOLE MAGAZINE
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