Note 144 — Chapter XXII · SECOND RESIDENCE AT FORT UNION, FROM SEPTEMBER 29TH TO OCTOBER 30TH

François A. Chardon had lived among the Osage for many years and later entered the American Fur Company's employ. In 1837 he was at Fort Clark when the steamer arrived with smallpox aboard. He himself, after warning the Indians against exposure, contracted the disease and was left for dead, but later recovered. In 1843 he was chosen to succeed Culbertson at Fort Mc Kenzie, and there perpetrated the massacre which led to the abandonment of that post and the building of Fort Chardon at Judith River (see notes 51 and 75, ante, pp. 70, 87). When Culbertson returned to the Blackfoot territory (1845), Chardon was sent to a lower post. Palliser found him at Fort Berthold in 1848, where he died in that year.

J. E. Brazeau belonged to the prominent Creole family of that name in St. Louis, who removed thither from Kaskaskia before 1782. He entered the fur-trade about 1830 and was for many years upon both the Yellowstone, where there were trading-houses called by his name, and the upper Missouri. He finally entered the Hudson's Bay Company, and in the summer of 1859 was met by the Earl of Southesk at Edmonton, where he gave that nobleman much information concerning American conditions in the fur-trade. See Southesk, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains (Edinburgh, 1875). Brazeau should not be confused with the negro of the same name, frequently mentioned by Larpenteur.

According to the account of his rival clerk, Larpenteur (see Journal, i, p. 76), Jean Baptiste Montcrévier was discharged from the company's employ in 1835. He was, however, with Culbertson at Fort Union in 1843, at the time of Audubon's visit. See Audubon and his Journals, index.—Ed.