Beaver Dick History

Beaver Dick History

Wednesday, 09 January 2013 16:04

Most people who live in Madison County have at least heard of Beaver Dick. There is a park named after him west of Rexburg on the Snake River. But just who is Beaver Dick and why would we care?

He was born January 9, 1831, in Manchester, England as Richard Leigh. He came to America (not actually as a stowaway) and joined the Hudson Bay Fur Company, fought in the Mexican War, and spent time in Utah before coming to the Teton area around 1860.

Ken Hughes wrote in Native Unity Digest, “While Jim Bridger was the best known Mountain Man east of the Tetons, Beaver Dick was the man of influence in the Fire-hole [Yellowstone Park] and Jackson Hole Wyoming and west of the Tetons in Idaho. He was fluent in both Shoshone and Bannock Indian languages and often served as interpreter and mediator between the whites and the tribes. His knowledge of the Teton country was unmatched by any man White or Indian; what he didn’t know his wife, Jenny, and her people did.”

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Richard was legally married to his Indian wife. Jenny was an Eastern Shoshone and the daughter of Chief Washakie. They had just had their sixth child when small pox was brought to their cabin with a visitor.

December 1876 the entire family caught it and Beaver Dick only survived because of the care he received from a friend, Tom Lavering, after his whole family died from small pox. He buried his family together at their home near the confluence of the Teton River and the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, 5 miles west of Rexburg.

It took him a long time to recuperate from small pox and in 1879 he headed down to Fort Hall. He was reacquainted with Pam and Tadpole whose daughter he had helped to birth when he was 35. Tadpole had promised this daughter to Richard, but Richard hadn’t expected that to actually happen. But Susan had grown up expecting to marry him and she did. They had three children together and many of their decedents still live in the area.

While Beaver Dick was primarily a hunter and trapper, he occasionally worked as a guide for the government. In 1872, he guided F. V. Hayden and his geological survey through the Teton and Yellowstone region. He guided the Stevenson exploration party in the Teton Basin and scaling the Grand Teton for the first time and guided the entire Hayden Expedition in Yellowstone and Jackson Hole. For his service, they named Leigh and Jenny Lakes in Grand Teton National Park after him and his wife.

Richard also guided hunting parties occasionally. Theodore Roosevelt was guided by him when he was hunting big game in the area. He was so impressed with him that he gave Richard a rifle that was a prized family heirloom until it was stolen.

Richard ‘Beaver Dick’ Leigh was a major figure in the exploration and settlement of the Madison County region. He is certainly one of our local heroes.

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