The Mystery of John Colter

Ronald M. Anglin is the author of Forgotten Trails: Historical Sources of the Columbia’s Big Bend Country. He is retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where he spent thirty years in land management in the National Wildlife Refuge System. He feels strongly that to be a good steward of an area, one must first understand its history, so that one’s mark on the land will be with love and respect, not cruelty or disdain. He and his wife, Kathy, live in Fallon, Nevada, and have two sons who are happily married with six children between them. Larry E. Morris is the author of The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers After the Expedition and The Perilous West: Seven Amazing Explorers and the Founding of the Oregon Trail. He is a curator with the Historic Sites Division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was born and raised in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in the Snake River country roamed by the likes of Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, and Kit Carson in the 1820s and 1830s. Larry and his wife, Deborah, are the parents of four children and have six grandchildren.

Acknowledgments

1 “Off He Started with the Speed of the Wind”: Colter’s Run
2 “One of the Survivors, of the Name of Coulter”: Searching for Colter’s Roots
3 “In Quest of the Country of Kentucke”: John Colter and the Legacy of Daniel Boone
4 “Colter Came Running Along the Shore”: The Encounter with the Lakota Sioux
5 Colter Had Just Arrived with a Letter from Capt. Clark.": Perilous Rivers and Mountains
6 “Colter Expressed a Desire To Join Some Trappers”: The Partnership with Dickson and Hancock
7 "Unruly Hands to Manage": Up the Missouri with LIsa
8 "Lonely Wanderings": The Riddle of Colter's Route
9 "In the Midst of an Unbounded Wilderness": Washington Irving and the Legend of Colter's Run
10 "We All Now Became Blind": West with Menard and Henry
11 "He Reluctantly Took Leave of Us": Surviving in Civilization
12 "As Fine a Body of Hardy Woodsmen as Ever Took the Field": Colter's Final Days

Epilogue
Chronology
Appendix A: Accounts of Colter's Run
Appendix B: The Documentary History of John Colter, 1803-1846
Appendix C: The Colter Stone and Other Graffiti
Notes
Sources Cited
Index
About the Authors