News of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau's Death

The Placer Herald, Auburn, July 7, 1866. Death of a California Pioneer

Photo: Public Domain

On May 16, 1866, word of the demise of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau arrived at the office of the Auburn, California newspaper, “The Placer Herald,” about 50 days after the youngest member of the Corps of Discovery died in the high desert of eastern Oregon.

The article/obituary was lengthy, eight paragraphs in total, and provided a detailed history of Jean Baptiste’s life and its many adventures. It also provided some insight into the personality of this long-time resident of Auburn. The closing paragraph read: “Mr. Charbonneau was of pleasant manners, intelligent, well read in the topics of the day, and was generally esteemed in the community in which he lived, as a good meaning and inoffensive man.”

Jean Baptiste had lived in the area around Auburn’s gold fields since 1849, so was well known and respected. In fact, according to the newspaper article, before he departed for Montana, he stopped into the newspaper office to say goodbye – that he was leaving California, probably for good. The editor added, “We felt then as if we met him for the last time.”

California was getting crowded, at least for Jean Baptiste, so as a friend summarized, “The reported discoveries of gold in Montana, and the rapid peopling of the Territory, excited the imagination of the old trapper, and he determined to return to the scenes of his youth.” He set out with two companions in the spring of 1866.

The melting snows of the high country of the Owyhee Mountains had swollen the rivers of Oregon. Crossing the ford just below the junction of Jordan Creek and the Owyhee River, his clothes were soaked and the cold April wind and rain led to sickness. His friends transported him about 25 miles to the nearest shelter at Inskip’s station. Jean Baptiste died there, likely of pneumonia, although some called it “mountain fever.”

He was buried north of the present-day unincorporated town of Danner, Oregon, about 20 miles from the Idaho border.

Text in image above reads: The Placer Herald, Auburn, July 7, 1866. Death of a California Pioneer – We are informed by Mr. Dana Perkins, that he has received a letter announcing the death of J.B. Charbonneau, who left this country some weeks ago, with two companions, for Montana Territory. The letter is from one of the party, who says Mr. C., was taken sick with mountain fever, on the Owyhee, and died after a short illness.”