Time Line: The Life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, "Pomp"

I made a time line on freezer paper, 18" wide and 123" long. Pomp’s age, in 10 year intervals across the top. The scale is two inches equal one year. Calendar years are shown along the bottom in ten year periods starting in 1805.

1805-06 With the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Lewis wrote on February 11, 1805, . . . the weather was fair and could wind N. W. About five oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy . . .

The temperature was 8 degrees below zero at sunrise and it was 2 degrees below at 4:00 p.m.

Clark wrote August 17, 1806 . . . We offered to convey him (Charbonneau) down to the Illinois if he chose to go, he declined, proceeding on at present, observing that he had no acquaintance or prospects of making a liveing below; and must continue to live in the way that he had done. I offered to take his little son a butiful promising child who is 19 months old to which both himself & wife were willing provided the child had been weened. They observed that in one year the boy would be sufficiently old to leave his mother & he would then take him to me if I would be so friendly as to raise the child for him in such a manner as I thought proper, to which I agreed etc.

1809 to St. Louis and Baptism

His parents did not take Pomp to St. Louis until the fall of 1809 because of hostilities with the Arikara Indian nation. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was baptized December 28, 1809 in a old church near the site of the Old Cathedral underneath the arch in St. Louis by a Trappist monk. He was four and a half years old. Pomp’s father and mother were there. Neither Lewis nor Clark were there. Lewis died about two months earlier. Clark was in Washington, D.C. Charbonneau wanted his son baptized in the Catholic church.

1811 Education

Pomp stayed in St. Louis and was educated under Clark’s guidance into the 1820s. He studied French and English, classical literature, math, history and science.

1812 His mother dies

At the time of the baptism, Clark offered Charbonneau and Sacagawea farmland in Missouri. Charbonneau was not a farmer and he sold the land back to Clark. Charbonneau and Sacagawea left St. Louis April 2, 1811 with fur trader Manual Lisa who wrote, We had on board a Frenchman named Charbonneau, with his wife, an Indian of the Snake nation, both of whom had accompanied Lewis and Clark to the Pacific. The woman, a good creature of mild and gentle disposition, was greatly attached to the whites, whose manner and dress she tried to imitate, but she had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country; her husband, also, had spent many years among the natives, was becoming weary of a civilized life.

1823 Meets Duke Paul

A major event occurred in June of 1823 when Pomp met Prince Paul William of Wurttemberg, which is now a part of Germany, in Kansas. The Prince convinced Charbonneau to let him take Pomp to Europe. He stayed with the Prince for six years, living among the royal household.

Hans is a descendant of the same family as Duke Paul. Hans has traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, the Far East and Russia. He has written 20 books. When the Berlin Wall came down, some documents related to Duke Paul were found in East Germany, including many of his diaries. Hans has access to them.

Duke Prince Paul read the book by Patrick Gass, a sergeant with the Lewis and Clark Expedition when it was published in German in 1814. The Duke was 17 years old. He came to the United States for the first time when he was 25 years old. He stayed several weeks with Clark in St. Louis. Clark told him Pomp would be a good guide. Duke Paul and Pomp met where the Kansas River flows into the Missouri on June 21, 1823.

The Duke went up the Missouri, without Pomp, as far as South Dakota. He met Charbonneau there and got permission to take Pomp to Europe. On the way down the river, he picked up Pomp and they started for Europe. Their boat sank as they headed down the Mississippi, but they eventually go to Europe. Pomp was introduced to the King and Queen of Wuerttemberg and made a big impression.

Pomp lived in the castle for two and a half years. He stopped calling himself by that name. He was Jean Baptiste.

The King and Queen decided that Duke Paul should get married. He did on April 27, 1827. The marriage broke up two years later. Duke Paul and Pomp took a trip to France and Spain. By December 21, 1829, they were back in St. Louis.

1829 Trapper, Mountain Man, Guide

Pomp stayed in the United States and worked as a trapper in Idaho and Utah.

1843 Pomp settles Charbonneau’s estate

From 1811 to 1838 Charbonneau served sporadically as an interpreter for the Indian Bureau. He was not at Fort Manuel when Sacagawea died there in 1812. He went back to St. Louis in 1839, "tottering under the infirmities of 80 winters." It is thought that Charbonneau died at about age 86. Sometime around 1843 his estate was settled by his son Jean Baptiste.

1846 Guide

Pomp was a guide for the Mormon Battalion from Santa Fe to San Diego in 1846 during the Mexican War. He spent several years working the gold fields in California near Sacramento, but probably was not took successful.

1847 Alcalde (mayor-public administrator-judge)

He also was mayor of the San Luis Rey Mission in California for a little while. He would not have gotten this position without his baptism as a Catholic in 1809.

1861 Hotel Clerk

He was listed as a clerk in the Orleans Hotel in Auburn, California.

1866 Last Voyage

In 1866 Pomp headed for the newly opened gold fields in Montana, but died en route from pneumonia on May 16, 1866 in Inskip Station, Oregon. He was 61 years old. His grave site is located in Danner, Oregon, three miles north of Highway 95. This is the southeast corner of Oregon–rough volcanic high desert country.

Pomp’s grave was discovered there in the 1960s.

Pomp died at this lonely stage stop. He was chilled from crossing the icy waters of the Owyhee River about 25 miles to the west. He came down with pneumonia. (There is also a report that he was suffering from tick fever.)

There were two traveling companion with him. They sent an obituary to a nearby town and left. No one knows who they were. There was a legend among ranchers that some famous person was buried there. A historian from New Mexico and the Skinner ranching family figured out who it was. When Pomp’s obituary was discovered in an old newspaper from an Idaho mining town, people were sure that he was buried there.

There are five other graves there, separated from a cattle and horse range by a fence. The remains of the Inskip Station are across the road.

The site has been restored and rededicated.

(Note: Some people think that Pomp and his mother are buried in Wyoming, but this seems to have less credibility than the sources cited here.)

* * * * *

What a remarkable life for the little baby born in what is now North Dakota 61 years earlier.

Prince Hans feels sure there is a picture somewhere of Pomp. Can you find it?

It seems rather ironic that Pomp died from crossing a stream when his first year and a half of life are considered. With his mother and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he traveled through wind, rain, hail and cold for many days. Sacagawea deserves a lot of credit for excellent care of the baby. It is also a credit to all of the men of the Expedition for the help they gave her.

Imagine what his life might have been if he had not become a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Pomp and his mother are featured on the new Golden Dollar coin.

References:

The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Gary Moulton

We Proceeded On, magazine of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc., February 26, 2000, page 12.

Duke Paul of Wuerttemberg on the Missouri Frontier by Hans von Sachsen-Altenburg with Robert L. Dyer

The Oregonian, newspaper, Portland, Oregon, May 2, 2000.

Jim Sargent

Bozeman, MT 59715