Lucien Fontenelle
Lucien Fontenelle (1800 - 1840) was a prominent fur trader in the Nebraska area in the early-19th century who was born to François and Marie-Louise Fontenelle on the family plantation south of New Orleans. His parents were killed by a hurricane while he was away attending school in New Orleans. He left New Orleans in 1816 after having been raised for a time by an aunt, and began working in the lower-Missouri fur trade in 1819.
He later became involved in the Missouri Fur Company. He married Bright Sun, also known as Me-um-bane, a daughter of the Omaha Chief Big Elk. Among their children was Logan Fontenelle.
Early in his career Fontenelle was involved in fur trading into the Rocky Mountains.[1][2] However starting in the late 1820s he was in command at Fontenelle's Post in what would become Bellevue, Nebraska, along the Missouri River. In 1831 he led a trading expedition to the Cache Valley of Utah and Idaho with . On their return to St. Louis they were joined by some Nez Perces people seeking to get Christian missionaries to come to their people.[3]
References[]
- Nebraska Studies article on Fontenelle
- Trottman, Alan C. "Lucien Fontenelle" in Le Roy Hafen, Trappers of the Far West Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark, 1983.
- ^ Vestal, Stanley (1970). Jim Bridger: Mountain Man. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 70, 87, 125. ISBN 9780803257207.
- ^ Russell, Osborne (2001). Haines, Aubrey (ed.). Journal of a Trapper; In the Rocky Mountains between 1834 and 1843. Santa Barbara: The Narrative Press. pp. 107, 135. ISBN 9781589760523.
- ^ Alvin M. Josephy, The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest, Abridge Edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), p. 85-86
- American fur traders
- 1800 births
- 1840 deaths