The Thomas Party

The road on this sign has been corrected. An earlier version put the Thomas party on the Bridger Trail; its replacement names the Bozeman. The Bighorn crossing where they left the wagon train had become a military post only that month: Captain N. C. Kinney's two companies of the 18th Infantry chose the ground for Fort C. F. Smith beside the ferry on August 12, 1866. The National Park Service records a 260-wagon train passing the fort on August 16, after which fear of attack stopped the traffic, with one more train that year.

What the plaque says

The Thomas Party In the spring of 1866, William Thomas, his eight-year-old son Charley, and Joseph Schultz, left southern Illinois bound for southwest Montana. Traveling by prairie schooner drawn by mules, they joined a wagon train at Fort Laramie, Wyoming and started up the Bozeman Trail bound for the Gallatin Valley. After the wagon train had safely passed through the hunting grounds defended by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors, it stopped to rest and make repairs at the Big Horn River crossing just north of the Montana-Wyoming border. Many emigrants believed the trail west of the Bighorn River to the Gallatin Valley was safe from the Indians. Because of that, the three members of the Thomas party left the security of the large wagon train to travel on alone. A few days later, on August 24, 1866, Indians attacked their camp, located here near the bank of the Yellowstone. William and Charley Thomas were killed near their wagon, Schultz was killed by the river where he was fishing. The wagon train they had left came upon the site later that day. They were buried in a common grave beside the road. The meager details which sifted back greatly impressed William Thomas's seven-year-old nephew. Seventy-one years later, in 1937, he closely followed the Bozeman Trail by car and succeeded in locating the forgotten gravesite.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Cattle Drive of 1866 — 2.0 mi
• The Crazy Mountains — 2.0 mi
• Montana's Jurassic Park — 2.1 mi
• The Great Highway of the Northwest: The Yellowstone Trail — 2.1 mi