In Memoriam

The boat was the American Fur Company's St. Peter's, which reached Fort Union on June 24, 1837, by the clerk Charles Larpenteur's account. Jacob Halsey, coming up to take charge of the post, was already sick. With no vaccine on hand, the fort inoculated about thirty Indian women living there with matter from Halsey's sores, and a few days later twenty-seven of them had smallpox. Assiniboine bands kept arriving to trade. Halsey wrote that he sent the interpreter out to every party asking them to turn back, and that none would.

What the plaque says

In Memoriam In the summer of 1837 an American Fur Trading Company steamboat laden with trade goods made its way from St. Louis to Fort Union. Smallpox broke out among the crew, but the boat continued to its destination. Contact with the steamboat's crew during the distribution of trade goods exposed the Wichiyabina or Little Girls' Band of Assiniboine, starting a terrible epidemic which eventually affected all the tribes of what is now northeastern Montana. Many of the tribes had never been exposed to this virulent European disease and were extremely susceptible. The disease seemed to strike the young, vigorous and most able-bodied family members with such swiftness that burial in many cases was impossible. Ninety-four percent of the Wichiyabina or Little Girls' Band of Assiniboine died. By the winter of 1838, when the disease had run its course, the Wichiyabina or Little Girls' Band of Assiniboine were no more. The 80 remaining Band members banded with other smallpox survivors and formed the Redbottom Band ( Hudesabina ) of Assiniboines. Today the Assiniboine people still mourn the untimely passing of so many of their ancestors, innocent victims of this dreadful pestilence.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Peck Theatre — 20 mi
  A movie house the Corps of Engineers threw up in nine months for the dam crews, meant to come down when the dam was done.

More markers nearby

• Wolf Point — 17 mi