Note 343 — OREGON MISSIONS AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF OREGON TERRITORY AND ITS MISSIONS (continued 4)

The post at Bellevue, for which see our volume xxii, p. 267, note 221.

Pierre Labbadie Sarpy, better known as Colonel Peter, was born in St. Louis in 1805 of a prominent French Creole family. About 1822 he went to the frontier as a trader, and thereafter preferred the free life of the West to a conventional career in St. Louis. Upon the retirement of Cabanné, Sarpy became the American Fur Company’s agent at Bellevue, where he autocratically ruled for many years. His Indian wife Nekomi was a woman of influence with the neighboring tribes. Colonel Sarpy aided the Mormons on their emigration and assisted in building up the new territory of Nebraska, establishing ferries, and maintaining several trading posts. He removed from Bellevue to St. Mary’s, Iowa, later (1861) to Plattsmouth, where he died in 1865.—Ed.