The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1913-02-27
V%ERENDRYE'S LEADEN
PLATE MOST ANCIENT
TOKEN SAVE OLD POST
State Librarian Investigates
Find and Gives History
of Exploration.

Pierre. S. D., Feb. 25.-Differing and
conflicting reports concerning the dis
eovery of the Verendrye plate a week
ago have led to a careful investigation
Of the circumstances of h find by
State Librarian Doane Robinson. Con-
corning the plate Inc its history Mr..
Robinson gave out the following
Interview this morning:
Pierre Gaultier. of Verendrye, fire.
quentiy called Pierre Verrennes, was
He spent his early life in France. but
returned to Canada and engaged in the
fur trade and became a notable ex-
plorer, opening up the route form Can
ada to Lake Winnipeg and conceived
the notion of finding a water way across
the continent to the Pacific. Charles,
Marquis of B~eauharnois. was a natural
son of Louis XIV, and at that time was
governor of Canada.
'From Beauharnois Verendrye Sc
cured a commission to carry out his
ambitions to go west In the late au-
.tunn of 1873, accompanied by a large
party of Canadians and Indians, he
reached a point in North Dakota. per-
haps in the immediate vicinity OF the
present town OF Towner. whence he
dispatched his eldest son IN to the Mis-
souri,. The elder Verendrye was at
tackled with a fever. and, becoming dis
eouraged, the party turned back to Can
pod. III Itfl tI eIuIye SeCuIeu IL new
commission from ~Beauharnois to push
his westward explorations, but because
of Ill health was unable to accompany
the expedition he organized and his two
sons took up the enterprise and the
next year G742) came west through
North Dakota and pushed on into Mon
tana until on January /, 1743 they
found themselves up against a range
of mountains that proved to them an
impossible barrier.
Authorities differ as to whether his
range was the Rockies of the Wind
River mountains, but the weight of au-
thority favors the latter. At any rate
they turned back and travelled in a
southeastern direction until they
reached the Missouri. There has not
been any doubt that they truck the
Missouri in central South Dakota, but
no one has been able to determine just
where. Parkman. in his Oregon Trail"
tnought they We're as far south as
White River. They reached the Mis-
souri, on1March 15t and remained Until
April 2, '174S, and, before they left to
go north to the Mandans, claimed the
region for France and planted a lead
plate with an inscription to witness the
circumstance. There is no record that
they planted any other similar plate
anywhere.
on Sunday afternoon, February 16,
1913, a party of school children, ON
posed of Hattie and Blanch Foster,
Ethel Parish, Maud Burns, George
O'Rfelly, Leslie Stroup and George
Damon We're on h high gumbo peak
near the hospital In Fort Pierre when
Hattie Foster discovered a corner Of a
bit of metal protruding from the earth
II placing the toe of her shoe under
1t pried it up and discovered there was
printed matter upon it. Whether she
picked it up and handed it to O'Rielly
or whether O'Rielly himself picked it
up Is in dispute, but at any rate it came
Into O'Rielly's hands.
Upon the claim thus made France
aDased her claim to the region which
20 years later she ceded to Spain and
received from Spain by retrocession in
IsoO and finally ceded to the United
states In 1903. Thus seem to be es-
IanIished the oldest land mark in the
Ihited states west of the Mississippi,
except the post built by LeSeuer. near
Mankato ~inl1Ta0."