Charles) all of the enlisted men in the Corps of Discovery served in that capacity during the expedition. Was that in memory of him, or of some other local figure of less certain lineage with the same unexplainable name and an equally legendary reputation?Ī tripman was a voyageur or boatman (such as those Lewis and Clark hired as engagés at St. As far as anyone knows, he never got as far south as Lewis and Clark’s “ Travelers’ Rest Creek.” Memorial?įour years before Jean-Baptiste Lolo’s death his name appeared on British Admiralty Chart 580, identifying a mountain on the west side of Quadra Island, overlooking Seymour Narrows, north of the town of Campbell River, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. The exceptional Mister-Captain-Saint-Paul-Jean-Baptiste-Chief-Lolo spent his last years in “reduced circumstances,” died on at age 70, and was buried at the Thompson River HBC Post. After being flogged for some unmentioned offense by the hateful HBC clerk at Fraser Lake, for which the innocent Lolo’s Shuswap friends threatened retaliation, the company compensated Lolo with the quasi-official title “Chief.” There is no evidence that he was ever called Lawrence by anyone.
HBC traders who knew him sometimes embellished his growing string of titles with the honorifics “Mister” and “Captain,” occasionally piling them up, as in “Mister Captain Saint Paul,” etc. Paul-either a nickname or a new baptismal name. This Lolo’s given name was Jean-Baptiste, one of the most common baptismal names among half-breed voyageurs in those days. Paul,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Vol. … Continue reading C Beyk, John Todd: Rebel in the Ranks (Victoria, B.D.: Horsdal & Schubert, 1995), 142. One of his daughters, Sophia, who for some unknown reason he occasionally called Martha, married John Todd (1794-1882), the HBC’s chief trader at the Thompson River Post. Lolo’s name was sometimes spelled Leolo, possibly reflecting a variant pronunciation. Cheadle (1836-1910), who toured the Canadian interior and met Lolo in 1863, observed that the colorful halfbreed spoke “a curious mixture of French, English & Indian,” and could swear effusively if not always understandably in his own French jargon. Widely known and highly respected both by the Salishan-speaking tribes of the Canadian interior-especially the nearby Shuswaps-and by the field managers of the HBC, Lolo negotiated a durable balance of power and mutual benefit between the two forces. Mister-Captain-Saint-Paul-Jean-Baptiste-Chief-Lolo Obviously, he had taken his strict Jesuit catechism very seriously. Morice, The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, formerly New Caledonia, 1660 to 1880 (Toronto: William Briggs, 1904), 151. thereby frightening the Indians from walking on God’s earth and going about their usual occupations. Making holy water in wash hand-basins, dressing up your cook to make him hold it, walking about the house with a whitewash brush in your hand with many mumblings and magical words, sprinkling the natives in said holy water, telling them that if they do not come to your place to dance and bring their furs with them this fall, they will be swallowed up like another Sodom into a fiery furnace or boiling caldron. Moreover, according to Samuel Back (1790-1840 or 41), the Chief Factor in the HBC’s Columbia District, Lolo was not above tricking Indians into doing whatever he wished, such as: In many native tribes a wife found guilty of adultry was … Continue reading/p> Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, 10 vols. Ermatinger sent his interpreter to find the man who had stolen his wife and deliver a dose of frontier justice-he was to cut off one of the thief’s ears. Charles) all of the enlisted men in the Corps of Discovery served in that capacity during the … Continue reading In 1828 the records of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) post at Fort Kamloops on the Thompson River in New Caledonia (British Columbia) listed him as an interpreter.įrancis Ermatinger, the clerk in charge there, was married to an Indian woman who ran off one day with her Indian lover. A tripman was a voyageur or boatman (such as those Lewis and Clark hired as engagés at St. He filled successive roles as a tripman on transport brigades, then later as a trader, horse-breeder, miner, trapper, and hivernant. A functionally illiterate halfbreed who possessed a remarkably strong personality, he was born sometime in 1798 of French and possibly Iroquois parentage, although he proudly called himself un Canadien. Here’s a Lolo we can really believe in–the most famous one of all.
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