Charbonneau's Grave [Canon 5D]
February 21, 2011 • Danner, Oregon
(click in the image for a larger, sharper version)
One of the great things about road trips are the unexpected discoveries you often find along the way. Sometimes these discoveries are right next to the road, while others a require a slight detour off the beaten path. On my February trip to southwest Idaho to take care of some family matters, my brother and I were driving through the high desert of southeastern Oregon (it was good weather on the trip up, as opposed to the snowstorms we encountered on the drive back …see the photo in the previous post) when we passed a small historical site sign by the side of the highway. It promised a location connected to the Lewis & Clark expedition: Charbonneau's Grave.
My brother and I were both intrigued. As we had plenty of time for the rest of our drive that day, and as we both appreciate a good historical detour, I turned the car around and we headed down the the snow covered gravel road into the desert. After 3.5 miles we reached the former town site of Danner. To call it a "town" today would be quite a stretch. It may have been a town once, but now it is no more than a handful of cattle ranches and a relic structure of an old general store. About a half mile beyond the old general store we found the Charbonneau gravesite.
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau
1805 – 1866
"As a baby, was with his mother Sacajawea,
a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
As a man, was a pioneer of the West
of pleasant manner
and esteem in the community"
The Sacajawea dollar, with the infant Charbonneau on his mother's back
Charbonneau led quite an interesting life. After spending his youth in America, he travelled to Europe when he was eighteen where he spent six years and became fluent in English, German, French and Spanish. He returned to America in 1829 and travelled extensively in the far west for the next 37 years. During this time he was a mountain man, interpreter, magistrate, hotel manager, and gold miner in the California Gold Rush of 1848-1849. He left the California gold fields in 1866, reportedly for a new gold strike in Montana. It was on this journey that he contracted pneumonia, which would eventually lead to his death. Though the reason for his pneumonia is unclear, the most common story is that there was an accident while crossing the Owhyee River (near present-day Rome, Oregon) and Charbonneau went into the river, which was probably running high and cold from winter snow melt. He was taken to Inskip Station (present day Danner) and died on May 16, 1866.
The current grave marker was placed by the Malheur Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1971. There are five other graves here near the site of the old Inskip Station, a stone ranch house that served as a stage stop in the 1860s and the ruins of which are within sight of Charbonneau's grave. Over the years visitors have left all manner of objects on and around the tombstone, everything from coins and small stones, to seemingly random artifacts including the following: a pocket knife, a magnifying glass, toys, wrist bands, a ceramic figure of a cowboy, a small green plastic lizard, shoes, a live bullet, an empty wine bottle, a gold pan, beads, a rosary, a puka shell necklace, and a car air freshener that, judging from its shape, was once infused with a fresh pine scent.
As roadside detours go, there wasn't a lot to see here, but it was one of the more interesting ones that I have made. Maybe it was the unexpectedness of finding it out in the middle of a vast and mostly empty landscape (empty of human settlements, that is). Or perhaps it was the mood of that day, with gathering clouds and a chill wind blowing across the snow dusted hills, and the small graveyard beneath that big sky. Or maybe it was just that I learned a story that I didn't know before. And quite a story it was, too. The story of a life that began on a famous journey of exploration and ended decades later on a journey to find gold.
Looking across the road from Charbonneau's gravesite.
(click in the image for a larger version)
