| Notes |
- The following has been extracted from an article by Claudine Chalmers PhD. that was printed in the American CanadianGenealogist, Vol. 37, issue #129, 3rd Quarter 2011.
Jean Baptist Charbonneau attended St. Louis Academy, now known as St. Louis University Highschool under the auspices of William Clark.
He left school in the early 1820's and became a guide and interpreter at a trading village near the Kaw River in Kansas.
He was befriended by Prince Paul Wilhelm von Wurttemb, a newphew of German King Fredrick I. For the next five years Jean Baptiste lived in a German palace and travelled extensively throughout Europe.
Bad Mergentheim baptismal records reveal that Jean Baptiste fathered a child born 20 Feb. 1829 with Anastasia Katherina Fries, the daughter of a local soldier. The child died three monts later.
Jean Baptiste returned to America in 1829. The 24 year old was now fluent in English, German, Spanish, and French, besides Indian tongues, and had acquired courtly manners of a true European gentleman.
Yet, he could not resist the call of the wild and he returned to the life of the mountain man which his father had led before him. William Boggs described him "the best man on foot on the plains or in the Rocky Mountains."
He was once appointed mayor of Mission San Luis Rey but resigned when he had to apply laws that kept the local Indians in debt and virtual slavery.
When one of his companions, James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Jan, 1848, he too caught gold fever and he headed to Placer County. The 1860 census showed him living near Auburn, CA.
In 1866, at age 61 Charbonneau once again felt the call of the wild. He joined a party heading for new goldfields in Montana Territory, close to the scenes of his youth. They had to cross the icy waters of the Owyhee River. Charbonneau caught pheumonia and died on May 16, 1866 at Inskip Station, a hamlet of Danner, Oregan.
There is a plaque dedicated to him by the Placer County Historical Society next to the old firehouse in Auburn, CA.
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1805 - 1866 (61 years)
