"Out of the entire Lewis and Clark expedition, only one member ever set foot in the Oregon territory again — and he’s actually buried here.

That would be “Pomp” — Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the baby born to Sacagawea in a birch-bark canoe in Fort Mandan (now North Dakota).

Charbonneau led a life of extremes, even by the standards of his time. Raised and educated in St. Louis, he traveled to Europe to spend six years in the court of a German duke, helped the Mormons invade Mexico, and became one of the most respected “mountain men” of the West. He spoke (no one really knows how well) at least half a dozen languages, probably more. A picture of him — or, rather, a picture of a baby that’s supposed to be him — is on the ill-starred “golden dollar” coin released several years ago; it’s the only picture of an infant ever to appear on money, anywhere. One of the scenic landmarks of the Rockies, Pompey’s Pillar, is named after him.

Yet nobody today has any idea what he looked like. For such a literate fellow, he seems to have written almost nothing beyond official documents. He drifts through early American history like a frontier ghost, and half the stories you’ll hear about his life have been made up to fill the more enticing holes in what we actually know."

Get the Story:
Finn J.D. John: Life of Sacagawea’s son is a tantalizing mystery (The Yamhill Valley News-Register 8/4)