Chevalier and Francois Verendrye were fur traders who built trading posts across Canada and down into what was later to become the Dakota Territory.  What little is known about their journey from Canada comes from a journal found in the French archives in 1851 and an inscribed lead plate which they buried at Fort Pierre two hundred and eighty years ago.

During their travels across the prairie, they traded guns and other goods for animal pelts.  Fox, otter, and muskrat pelt were good; however, beaver pelts were the best.

The beaver fur was soaked, pounded, and woven to make felt.  Felt was ideal for hats.  It was fine, warm, and beautiful.  Elegant gentlemen wore beaver hats.  They were most popular in Europe.  These hats were so valuable that they were often passed down from father to son.

As the market for beaver pelts expanded, the fur trappers and traders pushed further west.  The Verendryes and others looked for new land where the beaver was still plentiful.  This search brought French-Canadian, Spanish, and English traders into Dakota Territory.

Pierre Dorion was one of the first fur traders in the area.  He was a French-Canadian who came to South Dakota in 1785.  It is possible that he was the first permanent white settler to come into Dakota.  He married a Nakota woman (a member of a First Nations people originally of the Great Plains between the upper Missouri and the middle Saskatchewan rivers).  They lived along the Missouri River near what is now Yankton.

More French-Canadians came into South Dakota.  They traded with the Poncas, the Dakotas, and the Arikaras.  British fur traders came up the Missouri River from St. Louis.  They went as far as the Mandan villages in North Dakota where they built a trading post.

Even so, the vast northern prairie was still a huge mystery.  Most white people knew little about it.  It was the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804 – 1806 which would change that.  Their travels from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back revealed the unlimited potential for the region.

The Verendryes returned to the Mandans on May 19, 1742, and later explored the Cheyenne and Missouri rivers and their tributaries.  They were escorted by the Cheyenne Indians, whom they met during their earlier explorations.

It was somewhere in the middle of Wyoming on January 11, 1743 that a snow-capped mountain range loomed up before them, in the far distance.  They were glistening in the bright sunshine like diamonds.  The poetic Frenchmen named them the “Shining Mountains,” as they are known in poetry and Indian legend to this day.  For the first time, the white race, through the eyes of the Verendrye’s, was looking upon the great range of the Rocky Mountains.

It was then that the Verendrye’s gave up their quest for a way to the Western sea.  They somehow found the southern branch of the Cheyenne River and followed it to the Missouri River and the later site of Fort Pierre.  Instead of a Western sea, they had found a sea of prairie, the Rocky Mountains, established friendly relations with the natives, and discovered two great rivers, the Cheyenne and Missouri.

Because of the generalized nature of their narrative it is impossible to be certain either of their destination or the identity of most of the tribes they met during their travels.  Whatever their route, it is certain that they returned to the Mandans by way of the mouth of the Bad River.

On March 30, 1743 they buried a 7 x 8 inch lead plate on the top of a hill near the Bad and Missouri rivers. They claimed the region for France and planted the plate in the earth in evidence of their claim.

The plate remained where it was placed by the Verendrye’s for one hundred and seventy years.  During the 1876 gold rush in the Black Hills, the landing at Fort Pierre became impassable and had to be repaired.  The top of the hill where the plate had been buried offered the nearest available stone to reconstruct the river landing.

This left the earth at the top of the hill exposed to the elements.  For nearly forty years thereafter cattle wandered over the ground, children played there, and the wind and rain eroded the surface.

It was on February 16, 1913 that Harriet Foster and two friends were walking on the hill above Fort Pierre.  She observed a bit of metal protruding from the earth and placed her toe under it and pried it out.  One of them picked it up (which one is in dispute) and finding an inscription on it which they could not read, carried it down the hill and into town where they met two members of the legislature.  They told the children of its historical value.

Instantly there was a dispute between the children over possession of the plate.  At the time the plate was found their parents had some difficulty determining its rightful owner.  It remained in possession of the finders for three years.  In March of 1916 it was purchased by the State Historical Society for $500.

Today, the Verendrye Plate is considered one of the most significant historical finds in the entire northwestern United States.

 

Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on December 6, 2023