October 12, 2015
As I've mentioned a million or so times, Baptiste Lookout is a pretty remote place ... it's about 40 miles by road and trail from the nearest year-round human habitation. It was even more remote, of course, during the early years of white settlement in Montana, and in my historic research I've only read about one person who ever lived in the area year-round. His name, of course, was Baptiste!
The only written information I've uncovered about Baptiste was in a reminiscence that was composed around 50 years ago:
It's quite a story, and I think the dog is the most remarkable part of it ... the animal who found his master dead and then trekked 40 miles through the wilderness to find another human. I wonder what happened to him.
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On the topographic map showing the area around Baptiste Lookout, there's a spot labeled "Baptiste Grave," and on the way to the lookout back in August I made a side trip to try and find it. I followed an unmarked, overgrown path up from a disused logging road, and eventually found a ground depression with some metal debris that might have once been part of an old stove. A few yards away, there was a small, collapsing structure of saddle-notched logs, about three courses high. It was about three or four feet wide and maybe seven feet long, and it was slowly melting into the earth. I imagine those logs marked the site of Baptiste's grave.
The only written information I've uncovered about Baptiste was in a reminiscence that was composed around 50 years ago:
Baptiste was one of the earliest of the independent trappers and prospectors in the South Fork. Some say his name was Felix Baptiste. I have heard his name was really Baptiste Zeroyal. Like many of the area's early settlers, he trapped during the winter to finance summer prospecting. He never found anything in the South Fork of any significance, but he spent the greater part of his adult life in this area and remained in the South Fork until he died in 1909.
Mickey Wagoner told me of his part in finding Baptiste's body. In the spring of 1909, Wagoner was living on a homestead he had filed on the previous year on the present east side South Fork road above Martin City. One day Baptiste's dog, bedraggled and hungry, came to Wagoner's place. Mickey knew something must be wrong with his master. Mickey notified the sheriff. When Sheriff O'Connell arrived, Mickey accompanied him up the South Fork to Baptiste's cabin on Hoke Greek. Wagoner and O'Connell found Baptiste in his bed; he had been dead for some time. They buried him near his cabin.
It's quite a story, and I think the dog is the most remarkable part of it ... the animal who found his master dead and then trekked 40 miles through the wilderness to find another human. I wonder what happened to him.
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On the topographic map showing the area around Baptiste Lookout, there's a spot labeled "Baptiste Grave," and on the way to the lookout back in August I made a side trip to try and find it. I followed an unmarked, overgrown path up from a disused logging road, and eventually found a ground depression with some metal debris that might have once been part of an old stove. A few yards away, there was a small, collapsing structure of saddle-notched logs, about three courses high. It was about three or four feet wide and maybe seven feet long, and it was slowly melting into the earth. I imagine those logs marked the site of Baptiste's grave.