Bijeau of Bijou Creek

In the early 19th century, various fur trapping companies set up posts along the front range of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado. Trappers working for these companies went out into the wilderness, including the lands along the South Platte River, to trap beaver and buffalo sending the prized pelts back east. The trappers left little written evidence of their travels, but a few were known to have traveled along the South Platte River and likely through the Fort Morgan area including: William H. Ashley, Jim Beckwourth , John Gantt, Andrew Sublette and Kit Carson . But one trapper is of particular interest as a major landmark in the Fort Morgan area still bears his name.

Bijou Creek...



Joseph Bijeau dit Bissonet (1778-1836) worked as a fur trapper for Manuel Lisa, Jules DeMun and Auguste P. Chouteau out of St. Louis, showing up in the company records as early as 1806 . In 1815-1817, he was among the 21 trappers arrested by Spanish troops and taken to Santé Fé for illegally trapping on Spanish lands.

In 1820, Bijeau who was then living among the Pawnee, joined a party of explorers lead by Major Stephen H. Long. He would guide the expedition up the South Platte River to the Rocky Mountains:

Bijeau, particularly, was faithful, active, industrious, and communicative. Besides the duties of guide and interpreter, he occasionally and frequently volunteered his services as hunter, butcher, cook, veterinarian, &c., and pointed out various little services, tending to our comfort and security, which he performed with pleasure and alacrity, and which no other than one long habituated to this mode of life would have devised. During leisure intervals, he had communicated an historical narrative of his life and adventures, more particularly in as far as they were relative to the country which we have been exploring ….

Long’s party arrived in the Fort Morgan area at the end of June 1820 where they received their first view of the mountains:

“…we discovered a blue strip, close in with the horizon to the west – which was by some pronounced to be no more than a cloud….when the atmosphere cleared, and we had a distinct view of the sumit [sic] of a range of mountains…”

Their first view of the mountains came just west of Fort Morgan near Bijou Creek, the name given to the creek by Major Long in honor of the expedition’s guide. Nearly 200 years later, the creek still bears the name of this obscure fur trapper.

ngraving by Samuel Seymour "View of the Rocky Mountains on the Platte 30 Miles from their Base" Published in Edwin James. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20, 1823.

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Sources:

1. Photo: Engraving by Samuel Seymour "View of the Rocky Mountains on the Platte 30 Miles from their Base" Published in Edwin James. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20, 1823.
2. Inman, Henry, The Great Salt Trail (New York: Macmillan, 1898), p. 51.
3. Hafen, LeRoy R., “Joseph Bissonet dit Bijou,” The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, vol. 9 (Glendale, CA: A. H. Clark Co., 1965), pp. 27-32.
4. James, Edwin, Stephen Harriman Long, & Thomas Say, James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820 (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1905), pp. 226-227.