Alive, he was among the famous explorers of the West. Dead, he’s forgotten. His name appears here and there as a reminder — Bonneville Salt Flats and Bonneville Dam. But the Pontiac Bonneville, like him, is now a dusty memory.
Paris-born Benjamin Eulalie de Bonneville (1796-1878) charted and gathered data about the West during the 1830s, including some parts of what would become the Oregon Trail. In 1832, while supposedly on leave from the military, he traveled to the Northwest, assisting fur trader John Jacob Astor. With nearly 100 men, he mapped and gathered intelligence for Astor, whose company competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company. John McLoughlin, chief factor at the company’s Fort Vancouver, forbade his employees from assisting Bonneville. Indigenous tribes unwilling to displease the Hudson’s Bay Company also declined to help.
When Bonneville encountered the Nez Perce, they dubbed him the “Bald Chief.” The troop survived the winters thanks to gracious Indigenous peoples’ aid and returned to the East in 1835. According to Irving, the Army considered Bonneville “dead or lost” and struck him from its rosters. Persistent, Bonneville petitioned Secretary of War Lewis Cass repeatedly and won reinstatement in 1836.
In August 1853, Bonneville took command of Fort Vancouver and was its seventh commanding officer until 1855. The new governor of Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, visited the fort in November and stayed with then Col. Bonneville.
