John Merin Bozeman (January 1835 – April 20, 1867) was an American pioneer and frontiersman in the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

who helped establish the

Bozeman Trail The Bozeman Trail was an overland route in the Western United States, connecting the gold rush territory of southern Montana to the Oregon Trail in eastern Wyoming. Its important period was from 1863 to 1868. While the major part of the route us ...

through

Wyoming Territory The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital. The ...

into the gold fields of southwestern

Montana Territory The Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted as the 41st state in the Union as the state of Montana. Original boundaries ...

in the early 1860s. He helped found the city of

Bozeman, Montana Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...

, in 1864, which is named for him.

Life

Bozeman was born in Pickens County, Georgia, in January 1835 to William and Delila Sims Bozeman. Bozeman married Lucinda Catherine Ingram, and the couple had three daughters. In 1860, John Bozeman headed west to join in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, leaving behind his wife and children. After his mining claims in Colorado failed, Bozeman traveled to Deer Lodge in western

in 1862 to work the gold fields discovered by James and Granville Stuart. Bozeman later joined the January 1863 rush to newly discovered gold in Bannack, Montana, but his claims there proved unsuccessful. Seeing that it would be more profitable to "mine the miners" than to mine for gold, Bozeman enlisted the support of another unsuccessful Bannack prospector and friend, John Jacobs, to explore a new and shorter route into Montana Territory from the east. In 1863, he and John Jacobs blazed the

, a cutoff route from the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

to Bannack, Montana, and guided miners to Virginia City through the Gallatin Valley. Bozeman settled in the Gallatin Valley at a site "standing right in the gate of the mountains, ready to swallow up all tenderfeet that would reach the territory from the east, with their golden fleeces to be taken care of". The route spanned the eastern front of the Rockies north to the Yellowstone River, then west across the Bozeman Pass.Scott, Kim Allen. “Historical Note.” John M. Bozeman Collection, 1866-1965. Montana State University, Special Collections and Archival Informatics, 2009. In 1864, he laid out the town of

. Its proximity to the trail helped it to grow in the following years, especially as migration to Montana increased after the discovery of gold at Virginia City in 1864. In 1865, federal troops began guarding the trail from hostile Indian attacks, since the trail ran through lands reserved by treaty to Indian tribes. The federal government constructed Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith to defend the trail. The Sioux tribe "succeeded by closing the road by a massacre near Fort Kearny" in 1866. The trail was briefly abandoned.

Death

Bozeman was murdered on April 20, 1867 (aged 32), while traveling along the

Yellowstone River The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountain ...

to Fort C.F. Smith to secure a flour contract. His partner, Tom Cover, reported they had been attacked by a band of

Blackfeet The Blackfeet Nation (, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana. Tribal members primarily belong ...

Natives, but some historians suspected that Bozeman was killed by Cover himself, or perhaps even by a henchman of pioneer Montana rancher Nelson Story named Thomas Kent. The end of Bozeman's life is still a subject of debate today, and some theorize that he was murdered in revenge for his habit of flirting with married women.

Notes

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20050404124520/http://bozemantrail.org/bt-corridor.html * (as John Marion Bozeman) *John M. Bozeman Collection, https://www.lib.montana.edu/archives/finding-aids/0680.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Bozeman, John 1835 births 1867 deaths People murdered in 1867 American city founders American murder victims Explorers of Montana People from Bozeman, Montana People from Pickens County, Georgia People murdered in Montana Unsolved murders in the United States People from Montana Territory

Life

Death

Archives

See also

Notes

External links