Jesse Chisholm is best remembered for the famed trail that bears his name.
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But before his name became synonymous with cattle drives, he was a well-known trader, guide and interpreter in Indian Territory and surrounding areas.
"Most people think he drove cattle, but he didn't. ... He was not a cattleman," said Renee Mitchell, director of the Chisholm Trail Museum in Kingfisher.
Although some details of his life have been muddled over time, historians consistently praise Chisholm as a peacemaker who knew about a dozen American Indian dialects. As a mediator and interpreter, he helped establish many peace treaties between the U.S. government and the tribes.
"The Indians loved him. He talked with a straight tongue. Whatever he said he would do, he did," said Bob Klemme, an amateur historian from Enid.
Born around 1805 in Tennessee, Chisholm's father was of Scottish heritage and his mother was Cherokee. In the 1820s, he moved to the Cherokee Nation and settled near Fort Gibson.
"He was one of those guys that kind of had itchy feet. ... He was always wondering what was on the other side of the hill," Klemme said. "He was apparently just a born trader who loved his work."
In 1836, he married Eliza Edwards, whose father operated Edwards Trading Post south of today's Holdenville. They had a son named William before she died, Mitchell said.
He then married a half-Creek woman named Sha-kah-kee, and they had a daughter, Jennie. They lived east of present-day Asher, and he traveled extensively trading.
Chisholm took over a trading post east of present-day Lexington in 1850. Mitchell said Chisholm founded his last post eight years later at Council Grove, near what is now Bethany.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he settled with a group of American Indians east of present-day Wichita, Kan.
With the war's end in 1865, he loaded several wagons with goods and traveled to Council Grove, Klemme said. He followed the path forged four years earlier when federal troops, under the command of Col. Emory and guidance of Delaware Indian Black Beaver, left Indian Territory's forts for Kansas.
"It was a good and natural route consisting of plenty of nourishing native grasses and fresh, sweet water," said Bill Benson, executive director of the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan.
In the war's aftermath, Texas was overrun with longhorn cattle, while the north suffered a beef shortage. In 1867, Joseph McCoy made a deal with the railroads to build shipping yards at Abilene, Kan., and he urged Texas ranchers to drive their cattle there.
O.W. Wheeler was the first Texas cattleman to follow Chisholm's wagon ruts as he led his herd through Indian Territory. Over the next 20 years, millions of cattle trampled along the 800-mile trail from south Texas to Abilene, Kan. Although the trail had other names, Chisholm's stuck.
Klemme, an Oklahoma Historical Society board member, began marking the Chisholm Trail in 1990, planting the last stake in Oklahoma in 1997, the trail's 130th anniversary. He said the Chisholm name is so well known that it is often attached to other trails by mistake.
By the cattle trail's founding, Chisholm had struggled with cholera and missed the historic Medicine Lodge Treaty signing because of illness. Chisholm's friend James Mead reported that the trader died in 1868 after eating bear meat exposed to tainted grease.
"He died before the trail ever developed to its fullest, so he never got to see the hundreds of thousands of head of cattle that went on the trail," Benson said.
Chisholm is buried at Left Hand Spring, near present-day Geary. His tombstone is inscribed, "No one left his home cold or hungry."
Editor's note: Leading up to Oklahoma's centennial, The Oklahoman will be profiling Oklahomans who have made a significant contribution to the success of our state.
The Oklahoma Heritage Association tells Oklahoma's story through its people. To learn more, go online to www.oklahomaheritage.com.
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