Francois Payette

No one knows how Payette's story ends. He started as a canoeman from near Montreal, hired by Astor's Pacific Fur Company, and reached the Columbia in May 1812. When he retired from the Hudson's Bay Company on June 1, 1844, one account has him going home to Montreal on a pension and vanishing from the record. His son-in-law, George Goodhart, told it differently: that Payette died here in 1854 or 1855 and was buried at Washoe, above the meeting of the Snake and the Payette. In 2017 Canada's Governor General, Julie Payette, claimed him as an ancestor.

What the plaque says

Francois Payette This park memorializes the Pacific Northwest's most successful French Canadian fur trapper, for whom this city and county are named. In 1812, he came from Quebec to the Columbia at the age of 18. Moving inland to the Snake country in 1818, he trapped on Payette river, which was named for him that year. For a decade prior to his retirement in 1844, he managed Fort Boise, 20 miles south of here. "A merry, fat old gentleman" he was noted for his kindness to Oregon Trail emigrants who found him "exceedingly polite, courteous and hospitable." 324 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Weiser — 12 mi
  Every June the fiddlers come to a farm town on the Snake, and the campground plays all night.

More markers nearby

• Snake River — 5.1 mi
• Salmon Festival — 5.2 mi
• New Plymouth — 8.9 mi
• 11,000 Years of Indian Occupation — 13 mi