the State Historical Society of Missouri
![James Beckwourth. [Public domain; photographer unknown]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Beckwourth.jpg?h=518889fc&itok=01MEzfQk "James Beckwourth. [Public domain; photographer unknown]")
James Pierson Beckwith, better known as Jim Beckwourth following the publication of…
![French artist Louis-Leopold Boilly’s rendering of members of an Osage traveling party in Europe, including Big Soldier (at right). [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, object # S/NPG.2011.5]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Big-Soldier.jpg?h=86a29125&itok=SubP6M24 "French artist Louis-Leopold Boilly’s rendering of members of an Osage traveling party in Europe, including Big Soldier (at right). [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, object # S/NPG.2011.5]")
Big Soldier, a Little Osage war leader, was probably born in 1773 in a village near the Missouri River, in…
![A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-12/2.-marie-claire-catoire-billeron.jpg?itok=E78WqsG0 "A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]")
Marie-Claire Catoire Billeron’s name first appears in North America on the…
![Frederic L. Billon. [Billon, Annals of St. Louis in Its Territorial Days from 1804 to 1821 (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1888), frontispiece]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Frederic-Billon.jpg?h=1128d52b&itok=O2ASotLW "Frederic L. Billon. [Billon, Annals of St. Louis in Its Territorial Days from 1804 to 1821 (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1888), frontispiece]")
Frederic L. Billon’s amateur antiquarian pursuits in the mid-nineteenth century resulted in…
![Morris Birkbeck. [Morris Birkbeck and George Flower, History of the English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois (Chicago: Fergus Printing Co., 1882)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Morris-Birkbeck.jpg?h=c9fefaae&itok=Lsvu56gN "Morris Birkbeck. [Morris Birkbeck and George Flower, History of the English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois (Chicago: Fergus Printing Co., 1882)]")
An early pioneer-farming expert and author, Morris Birkbeck exerted an enormous influence…
![Daniel Bissell. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, Portraits, N38584]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Daniel-Bissell.jpg?h=a09a8e46&itok=sWzc640r "Daniel Bissell. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, Portraits, N38584]")
The builder and commandant of Fort Bellefontaine, General Daniel Bissell served with…
![The Louis Bolduc House in Ste. Genevieve. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Postcard Collection, P0032]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-07/1.%20Louis%20Bolduc.jpg?h=e43fa61c&itok=4C_WHq6g "The Louis Bolduc House in Ste. Genevieve. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Postcard Collection, P0032]")
Louis Bolduc was born near Quebec City in the village of St. Joachim around 1739 (his…
![Bollinger’s Mill. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-highsm-65211]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20George%20Frederick%20Bollinger.jpg?h=2e7ead55&itok=rso3eV9U "Bollinger’s Mill. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-highsm-65211]")
A group of German-Swiss immigrants landed in Philadelphia in 1710 and settled in southeast…
![Daniel Boone. Boone sat for artist Chester Harding shortly before his death in 1820. It is the only known portrait of Boone painted from life. [National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.2015.102]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20Daniel%20Boone.jpg?h=edafc073&itok=DQIaObCl "Daniel Boone. Boone sat for artist Chester Harding shortly before his death in 1820. It is the only known portrait of Boone painted from life. [National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.2015.102]")
Daniel Boone is most commonly known as a hunter, trapper, and frontier settler, but he also…
![This lunette in the Missouri State Capitol, painted by Victor Higgins, depicts the sons of Daniel Boone manufacturing salt at Boone’s Lick in central Missouri. [Missouri State Archives, Ken Raveill Collection, MS386, 004-030]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-01/1.%20Daniel%20Morgan%20Boone.jpg?h=92b7ab8c&itok=BifpiXWB "This lunette in the Missouri State Capitol, painted by Victor Higgins, depicts the sons of Daniel Boone manufacturing salt at Boone’s Lick in central Missouri. [Missouri State Archives, Ken Raveill Collection, MS386, 004-030]")
Daniel Morgan Boone was born on December 23, 1769, the seventh child of …