Note 73 — Chapter XXX · RETURN FROM FORT CLARKE TO THE CANTONMENT OF LEAVENWORTH, FROM APRIL 18TH TO MAY 18TH

For Primeau and Ponca River, see our volume xxii, p. 286, note 248, and p. 291, note 253. The trader was William, half-breed son of Colonel Robert Dickson, who had been agent for the British government among the Northwestern Indians during the War of 1812-15. William's mother was a Sioux, and he assisted his father during that war, being still in the pay of that government in 1817; see Wisconsin Historical Collections, xi, p. 350. By 1821 he was established in trade on Lake Traverse, whence one of his letters (written in French) shows traces of considerable education; ibid., x, p. 140. He accompanied a delegation to Washington in 1824 as interpreter for the United States (consult Minnesota Historical Collections, vi, p. 205), and two years later was licensed as a trader. Some time before 1832, he crossed to the Missouri River and entered the employ of the American Fur Company, for whom he had a post called by his name, near the mouth of Petit Arc Creek in South Dakota. There Larpenteur met him in 1838, and states that he shortly after committed suicide. Compare also E. D. Neill, History of Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1882), p. 452.—Ed.