George Pierre Drouillard (abt.1773-1810) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

George Pierre Drouillard

Born about Dec 1773 in Assumption Sandwich, Province of Quebec

Ancestors

Son of Pierre Drouillard and Asoundechris (Flat Head) Drouillard

Brother of Unknown Drouillard [half], Mary Louisa (Drouillard) Parent [half], Cecelia Drouillard [half], Catherine Drouillard [half], Elisabeth Drouillard [half], Francis Xavier Drouillard [half], Teresa Drouillard [half] and John J Droullard [half]

[spouse(s) unknown]

Died May 1810 at about age 36 in Three Forks region of the upper Missouri River, Louisiana Territory, United States

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Profile last modified 15 Mar 2024 | Created 23 Aug 2012

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1 Biography

Biography

George Pierre Drouillard has French origins.

Pierre (George) DROUILLARD

* Born: Surname: Drouillard Given Name: Pierre (George) Sex: M Birth: Dec 1773 Christening: 27 Sep 1775 Assumption, Canada Death: 1810 in Missouri "Nov. 1999. Received e-mail from Henry & Nancy Drouillard (email redacted). She said that she has documentatin that George was born in 1773. He was murdered by the Blackfeet Indians while checking his fur traps, 1810. while employed by Manuel Lisa's Fur Co." ^[1]

Mother: Asoundechris Drouillard formerly Flat Head^[2]
Pierre "George" Drouillard was born Dec. 1773 near Detroit to Pierre Drouillard and Asoundechris Flat Head.
He was baptized Sep. 27, 1775 at the Roman Catholic Assumption Church in Sandwich, opposite Detroit.
Added Category: Shawnee Metis; because he was born in "Canada" of French and Shawnee parents. Baraboo-1 14:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Three Forks region was later to become Gallatin County, Montana , USA

Historical Article

George Drouillard enlisted Nov. 11, 1803 in the expedition service and served until Oct. 10, 1806 .

At the conclusion of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis gave Drouillard the highest praise. Writing Secretary of War, Henry Dearborn, on 15 January 1807, he wrote;

"A man of much merit; he has been peculiarly usefull from his knowledge of the common language of gesticulation, and his uncommon skill as a hunter and woodsman; those several duties he performed in good faith, and with an ardor which deserves the highest commendation. It was his fate also to have encountered, on various occasions, with either Captain Clark or myself, all the most dangerous and trying scenes of the voyage, in which he uniformly acquited himself with honor."

When the expedition returned in 1806, Manuel Lisa, a prominent fur trader, immediately organized an effort to trap the upper Missouri River the next spring, hiring 50 men which included George Drouillard. These men signed contracts binding them to Lisa's company for three years and requiring them to turn over half of whatever furs they took.

In an effort to maintain military-like discipline, Lisa ordered Drouillard to go after a man named Bissonnet who had deserted and bring him back "dead or alive." Drouillard returned sometime later with Bissonnet, who had been shot. They sent Bissonnet back to St. Charles for medical help, but he died along the way.

Drouillard was charged with murder when he returned to St. Louis. His trial began on Sep. 19, 1808 and he must have been amazed to see his friend and fellow expedition member, George Shannon, on the jury. After a week long trial, the jury found him "not guilty."

In late March 1810, after wintering at Lisa'a Fort at the mouth of the Bighorn River, Pierre Menard led a party of thirty-two trappers westward up the Yellowstone River, across present Bozeman Pass, and down the Gallatin River to the Three Forks. The party, which included Drouillard and fellow expedition member, Colter, reached the Three Forks on 3 April. Work on the fort began immediately. As soon as a defensible structure was erected, groups of trappers began going out.

Drouillard was trapping beaver pelts, often going alone despite the danger from Indians. "I am too much an Indian to be caught by Indians," he said.

Unfortunately, he was killed by Blackfeet Indians May of 1810 at the age of 36, near Three Forks in present day Gallatin County, Montana. He left behind no wife or children.

From the Louisiana Gazette, dated Jul. 26, 1810; Early in May, George Druilard accompanied by some Delawares, who were in the employ of the company, went out to hunt, contrary to the wishes of the rest of the party, who were confident the Indians were in motion around them, and that from a hostile disposition they had already shown, it would be attended with danger, their presages were too true, he had not proceeded more than two miles from the camp before he was attacked by a party in ambush, by whom himself and two of his men were literally cut to pieces. It appears from circumstances that Druilard made a most obstinate resistance as he made a kind of breastwork of his horse, whom he made to turn in order to receive the enemy's fire, his bulwark of course soon failed, and he became the next victim of their fury. It is lamentable that although this happened within a short distance of relief, the firing was not heard so as to afford it, in consequence of a high wind which prevailed at the time.

"George Drouillard, the 28-year-old son of a French Canadian father and Shawnee Indian mother, was recruited by Captain Meriwether Lewis upon reaching Fort Massac in November 1803. Captain Daniel Bissell, who had been ordered by the War Department to recruit volunteers for the Corps of Discovery, recommended Drouillard as an excellent hunter with a good knowledge of the Indians’ character and sign language.

In his job as civilian interpreter, Drouillard was offered a stipend of $25 a month. He also received a $30 advance from Lewis for transporting eight volunteers from South West Point, Tennessee, to Fort Massac to join the Corps. Drouillard and York, the slave, were the only non-military members of the Corps to complete the expedition from camp Dubois to the Pacific and back. Drouillard generally accompanied Lewis on scouting missions. He was superior in situations of danger, where nerve, endurance and cool judgment were needed. Lewis praised him highly as the most skilled hunter among the men.

Because of his sign language skills, Drouillard often played a key role in establishing relations with the various Indian tribes that the Corps encountered. In late July 1804, just north of the Platte River’s entrance into the Missouri River, Drouillard and Private Pierre Cruzatte were sent by the captains to scout out the villages of the Oto and the Missouri Indians. They found the principal Oto village and fresh tracks but no people, as the villagers were off on an annual buffalo hunt. Days later, Drouillard came into contact with one Missouri and two Oto Indians, with whom Lewis and Clark sought to have council.

In early August 1804, Drouillard was one of four men named to a search party charged with locating Moses Reed and La Liberte, both of whom had deserted the Corps while en route to council with the Oto tribe. Drouillard and the other members of the search party succeeded in bringing Reed back to the Corps. Intent on making peace, nine Oto Indians, including Little Thief and Big Horse, returned with the Americans.

During the winter of 1804-05, Drouillard’s interpretive and hunting skills were integral to establishing friendly relations with the Mandan Indians, with whom the Corps survived a incredibly cold winter. He was often assigned to small hunting groups, who would be charged with collecting meat to feed the Corps and to trade with the Mandans for other foodstuffs. In November 1804, Drouillard and six other unnamed men traveled upstream in a pirogue, navigating a freezing, ice-coated river to deliver the dressed carcasses of 32 deer, 11 elk, and five buffalo to Fort Mandan.

In February 1805, after recovering from having been bled and purged for pleurisy, Drouillard and three other men were assigned to transport some buffalo meat that had been cached downriver. The team headed down the river on the ice with two sleighs, three horses and a colt to where the hunting party had stored the meat in log cribs, safe from predators. One evening during this trip, the team was attacked by over 100 Sioux Indians, who stole the two sleigh horses and some of the team’s weapons. At Drouillard’s advice, the team wisely held their fire. It was enough that the Indians could claim to have stolen two horses from the powerful white men. The Americans, although short of needed supplies, were safe, and arrived back at Fort Mandan without the needed meat, which was later retrieved.

After departing Fort Mandan on April 7,1805, the Corps reached the mouth of the Yellowstone River. Lewis and Clark decided to examine and map the river’s coordinates for transcribing onto Clark’s strip maps. Lewis led a team that included Drouillard, climbing to the top of the Missouri’s southern bluffs. They were amazed at the amount and variety of wildlife. Lewis recorded “immense herds of Buffalo, Elk, deer and Antelope [were] feeding in one common and boundless pasture.”

June 11, 1805, Drouillard accompanied Lewis, Joseph Field, Gibson, and Goodrich, up the south fork, eager to locate the Great Falls and therefore prove once and for all that the south fork was the true Missouri. On June 13, Lewis, upon sighting the falls, declared them “this sublimely grand specticle.”

Drouillard provided vital interpreter services to Lewis when the captain and an advance party were scouting for the Shoshones. Comenting on Drouillard’s sign language skills, Lewis, on August 14, 1805, wrote: “The means I had of communicating with these people was by way of Drewyer [Drouillard] who understood perfectly the common language of jesticulation or signs which seems to be universally understood by all the Nations we have yet seen. It is true that this language is imperfect and liable to error but is much less so than would be expected. The strong parts of the ideas are seldom mistaken.”

In early July 1806, Lewis and Clark divided the Corps into two groups at Traveler’s Rest, near present Missoula, Montana. Lewis would head northward to determine the upper limit of the Maria’s River; in turn, his exploration would help determine the northern extent of the Louisiana Purchase Territory. Clark would lead a detachment to explore the Yellowstone. Drouillard and Joseph and Reuben Field accompanied Lewis into the northern country, where they skirmished with some roving Piegans, a band of the Blackfeet tribe. Attempting to steal the weapons and horses of the white men, two Piegans perished. Lewis was nearly shot by one of the Indians. Writing later, Lewis explained: “He overshot me, being bearheaded, I felt the wind of his bullet very distinctly.” The explorers escaped, managing to reclaim their horses, together with taking several of the Indians’ horses. This incident would allegedly spark the Blackfeet’s desire to avenge the two Indians’ deaths during later U.S. trading expeditions.

When the Corps safely reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806, Lewis entrusted Drouillard with the delivery of the first letters containing reports of the expedition to the postmaster in Cahokia. These letters were then sent on to President Jefferson. Later, after the Corps was disbanded, Drouillard returned to the Three Forks region of the upper Missouri as a member of Manuel Lisa’s 1810 fur trading party. It was there that Indians killed Drouillard, horribly mutilating him."^[3] ^[4]

Death Account

" About 1775 a son was born, of a Shawnee mother and French trapper, whose life was to become woven into the fabric of western history. Hired by Lewis and Clark as a hunter, he served well with this expedition. Then he returned to the Rocky Mountains in 1808 to trap and trade furs for the newly formed Missouri Fur Company under the leadership of Manuel Lisa. After returning from this trip, to the upper Yellowstone River country, he platted the maps, including the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming for William Clark.

Returning in 1810 to the headwaters of the Missouri River as a partner in Lisa's Fur Company, George Drouillard and two Delaware trappers were ambushed and killed by Blackfoot Indians at the Three Forks of the Missouri River. They were not rescued because their companions could not hear the gunfire through the shrieking prairie wind." http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nancyelder/GeorgeD.htm

Memorial

George Pierre Drouillard ; aka Pierre George Drouillard
Birth: Dec., 1773; Windsor; Essex County; Ontario, Canada
Death: May, 1810 Gallatin County Montana, USA
George Drouillard was born in 1773 in the Detroit River region, son of Pierre Drouillard and a Shawnee woman, named Asoundechris. George Drouillard was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Camp Dubois to the Pacific Ocean. While checking his traps in May of 1810 he was killed in an Indian attack. When his body was found it was buried in an unmarked grave. Mount Drouillard (formerly Mount Drewyer) in Teton County, Montana, is named in his honor. George was baptisted Peter on September 27, 1775 at Assumption Parish, Essex County, Ontario, Canada.
Parents: Pierre Drouillard (1746 - 1803)
Siblings: George Pierre Drouillard (1773 - 1810) ; Son Drouillard (1777 - 1777); Marie Louise Drouillard Parent (1778 - 1855); Catherine Drouillard Maisonville (1781 - 1861) ; Elisabeth Drouillard (1783 - 1783) ;Francis Xavier Drouillard (1784 - 1852); Joseph Pierre Drouillard (1796 - 1895); Simon Kenton Drouillard (1801 - 1852)
Burial: Unknown.^[5]