854 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 3, 1911- 
Death of Charles Chouquette. 
One by one as the years go by, those old-time 
residents of America who saw and were a part 
of the stirring events of the last century, are 
passing away, and of those who had to do with 
the early settlement of the West, few now re¬ 
main. From time to time Forest and Stream 
has recorded the moving onward of one or an¬ 
other of the men who, as explorers, military 
commanders, fur traders, or simple engagees, 
took part in the subduing of a West which once 
was unknown, wild and stubborn, but now is 
wholly tame, fertile, productive and—common¬ 
place. 
Charles Chouquette, old-timer, voyageur, trap¬ 
per, interpreter and scout, died on May 18, at 
his home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation 
in Northwestern Montana. He had lived in 
what is now Montana for almost the allotted 
span of man’s life, and had witnessed all the 
changes that more than three score years had 
brought. During his long life he was honest, 
sober, industrious, reliable, highly thought of by 
his neighbors and friends; equally esteemed by 
the bourgeois of the fur company for whom he 
might work, the chief of the Indian tribe 
among whom this work lay, or the superintend¬ 
ent of the Indian school on the reservation. 
Charles Chouquette was born in St. Louis, 
Feb. 18, 1822, the very year in which the town 
received its charter as a city. Its population 
was still largely French. It was already the 
center of an important fur trade, which was con¬ 
stantly growing greater. This fur trade, though 
well established out over the plains, had not long 
before begun to extend up the Missouri River. 
Of the French population of St. Louis, many of 
the strongest, most courageous and best of the 
young men took service with the fur traders. 
Among these was Charles Chouquette, who, at 
the age of twenty-one, became an employee of 
the American Fur Company, and in 1843 set out 
for the West, reaching Fort Union in 1844, “the 
year of the high water,” as he used to call it. 
Old Bill Hamilton, as told in the book, “My 
Sixty Years on the Plains,” had left St. Louis 
for the mountains the year before. 
Not long after Charles Chouquette reached 
Fort Union, came the terrible smallpox, when 
the Indians gathered about the post and died 
there' in appalling numbers. The employes of 
the fort buried them as they could, but at last, 
when freezing weather came, it was impossible 
to dig trenches for this purpose, and the bodies 
were stacked up like cord wood to await the re¬ 
turn of spring and the softening of the ground. 
During his residence at Fort Union, Charles 
Chouquette was often chosen for tasks of diffi¬ 
culty and danger. He often carried dispatches 
from Fort Thuon to the nearest post to the east¬ 
ward, and the stories that he told of night rides 
in summer, and of foot journeys in winter, when 
dogs carried the packs of mail, were of extra¬ 
ordinary interest. 
After years of service at the mouth of the 
Yellowstone, he moved up the Missouri to Fort 
Benton, and later lived at Sun River and 
Choteau. After a time he left the service of 
the Fur Company had became a free trapper, 
following that vocation during the season when 
furs were prime, and after the fur season closed, 
occupying himself with other pursuits. In one 
of his trapping journeys he wandered in the 
then unknown Yellowstone Park. Here or near 
here his horses were stolen by Indians, probably 
Sheep Eaters or Crows, and he was obliged to 
return to Fort Benton on foot, carrying his 
scanty possession on his back. He used to say 
that the Indians of those days regarded the 
Yellowstone Park as sacred ground, and that 
they used to boil antelope meat in a hot spring 
and considered that food their most powerful 
medicine in sickness. 
On the plains with Charles was a brother, 
Roque Chouquette, who many years ago was frozen 
to death between Fort Benton and Sun River. 
Roque Choquette was traveling in company with 
Major Vaughn, then agent of the Montana 
Blackfeet. A great storm came on and Roque 
Choquette was sent to look for shelter and never 
returned. This was about the winter of 1857. 
His bones were found the following spring. 
In the year 1855, when Governor Stevens 
made the first great treaty with the Upper Mis¬ 
souri Indians—Blackfeet, Gros Ventres, Assini- 
boines, Crows and Sioux—Charles Chouquette was 
one of the interpreters during the eight days of 
the councilling. Before this he had chosen a 
wife and made his home among the war-like 
Blackfeet of the Upper Missouri and Marias 
rivers, and here and among these people he died 
as he had lived. 
One of his daughters, Louise, married the late 
Charles Aubrey, long known in Northern Mon¬ 
tana political and business circles and long a 
correspondent of Forest and Stream. Another 
daughter married John Wren, a familiar figure 
in Fort Benton and Choteau county in the days 
of the buffalo, the steamboat, and the bull team. 
Another married R. Morgan. Two sons, Charles 
and Antoine, live to-day on the Blackfoot Indian 
reservation. 
Charles Chouquette came to the plains when 
might was right and the will of the strongest 
was the only law. Pie lived there for two gen¬ 
erations of people, for sixty-seven years elapsed 
from the time when he reached old Fort Union 
until that day when he started on the long trail 
from which travelers do not return. 
To Drain Lake Drummond. 
Raleigh, N. C., May 22 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Alligator hunting is not what may be 
termed a profession in North Carolina, yet a 
good many are killed. Thomas Addickes, of the 
State museum, has returned from the south¬ 
eastern part of the State. In a large pond on 
the Orton estate there are many alligators. Mr. 
Addickes had the good fortune to get specimens 
for the museum. 
Herbert H. Brimley, curator of the museum, 
has also returned from Beaufort, where he 
visited some lakes which he has described in 
Forest and Stream. He secured some fine speci¬ 
mens including six alligators. With one of these 
he had a curious experience. He stooped over 
the hole and kept quiet, and by and by the alli¬ 
gator, coming up to breathe, put his snout out 
of the water and Mr. Brimley, who is a power¬ 
ful man, gripped him with both hands, holding 
his mouth so that he could not open it, then 
suddenly released one hand, drew his knife, bent 
back the alligator’s head and cut its throat. This 
alligator was six feet long. 
The Legislature acted wisely in enacting a law 
prohibiting the sale of certain lakes, part of the 
public domain, which have always been noted 
for their fish. One of these is White Lake, near 
Elizabethtown. In July the work of pumping 
the water from Lakes Mattamuskeet and Drum¬ 
mond will begin. • There will be a battery of a 
dozen steam pumps, which will lift the water 
into a canal which will be used for drainage 
and also for vessels to come to what is now the 
rim of the lake. It is said that the drainage of this 
lake is the biggest undertaking so far in the 
United States, for it covers almost fifty thou¬ 
sand acres. The lake is to be cut up into plan¬ 
tations. Tradition holds that this lake, like Lake 
Drummond and others, was the result of a fire 
in some dry season. The peat is soft and the 
soil being burned out, water filled the basin thus 
formed. This lake, like Lake Drummond, is 
higher than the adjoining land. In the bottom 
of this lake, as in other lakes in this State near 
the coast and also in such rivers as the Cape 
Fear below Wilmington, there are vast numbers 
of partially burned cypress stumps, many of them 
of gigantic size. 
Capt. Earl I. Brown, of the Engineer Corps, 
who did the work on the inland waterway near 
Beaufort, completed last year, tells me that 200 
vessels are now using this route each month. 
The yachts coming up from the South pass in 
at Beaufort inlet and through salt water into 
the canal’s south end, but soon strike fresh 
water and have this all the way until they reach 
the northern end of either of the Dismal Swamp 
canal, or the Albemarle and Chesapeake canal, 
since now they have the choice of either of 
these, though the United States is soon to take 
over the latter canal as the regular route be¬ 
tween the North Carolina sounds and Norfolk. 
Fred A. Olds. 
New York Legislature. 
Albany, N. Y., May 29.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Governor Dix has signed Assemblyman 
Manley’s bill, providing that after Oct. 1, 1915, 
the open season for grouse shall be from Oct. 
1 to Nov. 30, and for trout in that portion of 
Oneida county north of the Central Hudson 
railroad tracks from May 1 to Aug. 31. 
The Senate committee on forest, fish and game 
has reported favorably Senator Burd’s concur¬ 
rent resolution amending the constitution by au¬ 
thorizing the State to use forest lands for water 
storage purposes, and to grant power rights for 
a period of not more than fifty years. 
Senator Roosevelt’s bill, reducing the price of 
hunting licenses from $25 to $10, has also been 
reported favorably by the Senate committee. 
The Senate forest, fish and game committee 
has reported favorably Senator Long’s bi 1 , mak¬ 
ing the open season for ducks, geese, brant and 
swans from Oct. 1 to Feb. 1, both inclusive, 
instead of from Oct. 1 to Jan. 10, and making 
