George Drouillard
George Drouillard (ca. 1775-1810) was one of the most important members of the Corps of Discovery. The son of a French Canadian father and Shawnee mother, Drouillard grew up in Ohio and the Detroit area. It is also likely that he visited Kentucky on any number of occasions. His hunting and tracking skills were superior and Lewis paid him high praise at the end of the journey. Drouillard was a civilian member of the Corps. He met Lewis and Clark in November at Fort Massac, on the lower Ohio River. He was living at Massac Village and in the Cape Girardeau District of Missouri. He was hired by the captains to locate and escort the party of expedition recruits from South West Point, Tennessee, that had failed to arrive at Massac. He joined the expedition on December 25, 1803, as an interpreter and hunter – undoubtedly one of the best Christmas presents the captains ever received. He and the Field Brothers tended to be in the thick of the expedition’s most dangerous episodes, including the July 26, 1806, fight that Lewis and these three men had with a band of Blackfeet Indians. After the expedition he remained in the West as a fur trapper and was killed by the Blackfeet near the Three Forks of the Missouri in the spring of 1810. A biography, articles, and a historical novel have been written about Drouillard.
