Across The Fence: Here lies Major Alexander Culbertson

According to the definitive history of "The American Fur Trade of the Far West," written by Hiram Martin Chittenden and published by New York publishers in 1902, Major Alexander Culbertson died Aug. 27, 1879, and was buried in Orleans, Mo. Consequently, scholars of the American fur trade assumed the information to be correct.

However, Nebraska historian Charles E. Hanson Jr. discovered a 1940 biography in the Montana Historical Societies publication of "Contributions" that cited a different location and called into question the information given by Chittenden. A search by Hanson in 1950 revealed that although there was a Fort D'Orleans on the Missouri River in the state of Missouri, established in the 1770s, there was no town of Orleans. So, where is Major Alexander Culbertson buried? But first, just who was Maj. Alexander Culbertson?

Born to parents of Scotch-Irish decent in Chambersburg, Pa., in May 1809, Alexander spent his first 17 years on the family farm. Then in 1826, he joined his uncle and headed south to the Indian campaigns in Florida. His early travels took him to the bustling streets of New Orleans and from there to the gateway of the west, the queen city of the Mississippi, St. Louis.

St. Louis was the hub of the fur trade industry, where trapping and trading expeditions regularly set off into the unknown wilderness of the great west. Men of adventure and daring boarded keelboats packed to overflowing with trade goods and supplies to begin the journey upriver. At age 21 in 1830, Alexander hired on with John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and joined the ranks of those men who would explore the unknown west, live in peace with the native people of the region and seek their fortunes in the clear, beaver laden streams of the Rocky Mountains.

Culbertson was quite popular among the men in the company and rose quickly in the ranks. Astor's company managers, Kenneth McKenzie and William Laidlaw, recognized Culbertson's leadership abilities and when they retired, Culbertson became Astor's top company manager. Unlike McKenzie and Laidlaw, Culbertson succeeded not so much through his business skills but more by calculated diplomacy, honesty and fair dealing. These characteristics enabled him to effectively lead the company as their principal trader with the Blackfoot for the next 30 years.

During his years with the company, Culbertson became quite knowledgeable of the culture and lifestyle of the Indian and the country they inhabited. It was said that his skill as horseman and hunter was unequalled.

Contributing to his success in trading with the Blackfoot tribes was his marriage to the daughter of White Buffalo, a Piegan Blackfoot chief. Culbertson was likely the first white man to take an Indian wife. This was at his first post at Fort McKenzie on the Missouri River in what would become Montana Territory. The marriage was witnessed by Prince Maximillian and was arranged through the exchange of several horses, a finely crafted rifle and a significant amount of trade goods. However, this marriage did not work out and Culbertson released the daughter of White Buffalo from her obligations and sent her back to her people.

Later, in 1840, Culbertson married the daughter of chief Two Suns of the Blood, a tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Her name was Natoyist-Siksina ("Sacred Snake"). Together the couple worked for 30 years promoting cooperative relations between the influx of whites and the Native inhabitants of the region. Their children were well educated and became prominent citizens of the growing nation.

In 1845, Culbertson established Fort Lewis, so named in honor of Meriwether Lewis, as a principal trading post for the Blackfoot on the upper Missouri. Soon after the fort's completion the Blackfoot chiefs suggested that the fort would be better served if it were on the opposite side of the river. So, two years later, the log palisades of Fort Lewis were dismantled and floated across the river to be rebuilt on the northern banks. After the relocation was completed Culbertson ordered his men to begin making adobe bricks for the building of a two-story structure that would be a home for himself and Natoyist-Siksina. Eventually the entire fort would be rebuilt with adobe bricks and in 1850 was renamed Fort Benton in honor of Sen. Thomas Hart Benton, who had saved the company's trade license after being charged with illegal whiskey trade.

Alexander Culbertson was for a time the Agent-in-Charge or Bourgeois ("Bushwah") of Fort Union in Dakota Territory and Fort Laramie in Wyoming Territory. Culbertson was often called the King of the Upper Missouri and was one of many men who ventured into the unexplored wilderness. He joined the ranks of men who endured unimaginable hardships, exemplified the act of bravery and displayed courage beyond expectation. Along with others of the same ilk, he dragged the loaded keelboats up river, survived on meager rations of dried meat and the occasional fresh game. And between the years of 1831 to 1846 these men built a dozen forts on the banks of the Upper Missouri. He was explorer, mountain man, trader and negotiator.

In 1851 Alexander Culbertson, already a trusted friend of the Indians, was among the interpreters and negotiators at what became known as the Horse Creek Treaty of 1851. Never before had such a large gathering of Plains Indians come together to treat with the whites. It has been estimated that as many as 10,000 Indians, from the plains tribes, gathered around Horse Creek near present day Mitchell, Neb., and talked peace.

White Antelope of the Cheyenne was there, so were Little Owl of the Arapaho, Big Robber from the Crow Nation and Conquering Bear of the Sioux. Culbertson accompanied such notable frontiersmen as Thomas Fitzpatrick known as 'Broken Hand' – the man who had discovered South Pass, Jim Bridger who was perhaps the most respected mountain man and guide and Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, who mapped the region given only descriptions of the land by Fitzpatrick, Bridger and Culbertson. These men assisted in negotiating a peace that lasted until 1864.

Isaac Stevens, superintendent of Indian Affairs under President Pierce, for the newly formed Territory of Washington said of Culbertson the he "...exhibited an ascendancy over those tribes which could only have been gained by just and decisive course toward them."

Most of Culbertson's career was spent at Fort Benton where he, along with his wife Natoyist-Siksin, worked together as diplomats and interpreters. For nearly 30 years, the couple helped to bridge the sometimes-widening gap between the native tribes and the ever-increasing white traders and settlers. During their years together they raised five children, each well educated and successful.

In 1858, after a long and profitable career with the American Fur Company, the Culbertsons' moved to Peoria, Ill. Maj. Culbertson's Blackfoot wife was apparently quite unconventional. It is told that in the fall of the year she would set up a Blackfoot tepee on the family lawn, exchange her "white" clothing for Blackfoot attire and would spend several weeks in her traditional home. After 10 years in Illinois, in 1868, the couple returned to Fort Benton and resumed their former pursuits in trading. Shortly after, Natoyist-Siksina left Alexander and Fort Benton and returned to her people in Alberta where she died in 1895. The two were never reunited.

Alexander continued living at Fort Benton for a time and served as an interpreter for several differing agencies. Toward the end of Alexander's life, he left Fort Benton and went to live with one of his daughters, Julia Culbertson Roberts and her husband George H. Roberts. The two had settled in a small midwestern village. It was there that Alexander Culbertson died on Aug. 27, 1879, and was buried in the village cemetery, his grave marked only by a small Lilac bush.

In the 1940s, a local rancher discovered that the cemetery, which bordered his land, had not been platted as a cemetery and was successful in petitioning the cemetery to be moved so that he could claim and fence the land and include it in his holdings. The cemetery was relocated and Alexander Culbertson was reinterred in an unmarked grave.

It was in 1950 when Nebraska historian Charles E. Hanson Jr. set out to track down the gravesite of Maj. Culbertson and after confirming the location, arranged to have an appropriate monument commissioned by the Nebraska State Historical Society and placed in the cemetery where the nearly forgotten Major was buried. Not in Orleans, Mo., as recorded in previous historical accounts but in Orleans, Neb., a small village in Harlan County, south of Holdridge and close to the Kansas border.

To the east of the town of Holdridge near McCook, Neb., is the town of Culbertson, named in honor of the courageous pioneer explorer, trader, mountain man, interpreter and trusted friend of the Blackfoot nation who spent his final days in Nebraska under the care of a cherished daughter.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award-winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. Contact him via email at [email protected]