the State Historical Society of Missouri
![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/large/public/2020-07/Big-Soldier.jpg?itok=HPI9QCbX "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…
![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/large/public/2020-07/Frederic-Billon.jpg?itok=fhcoHv_g "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/large/public/2020-07/Morris-Birkbeck.jpg?itok=dUJP8en5 "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/large/public/2020-07/Daniel-Bissell.jpg?itok=92tSvLpV "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…
![Portrait of William Clark by Charles Willson Peale, c. 1807–1809. [Courtesy of the Independence National Historical Park]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2020-06/William-Clark-portrait-by-Peale.jpg?itok=0Eite8jK "Portrait of William Clark by Charles Willson Peale, c. 1807–1809. [Courtesy of the Independence National Historical Park]")
William Clark, the celebrated explorer who joined Meriwether Lewis …
Rose Philippine Duchesne, a French pioneer missionary on the American frontier, was born on…
Established in 1808 under the superintendence of William Clark, Fort Osage served as a US military outpost and a…
John Hardeman, best remembered for the botanical showplace he created on the banks of the…
![Samuel Hawken. [Missouri Historical Society, Prints and Photographs Division, N38641]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2020-06/William-Henry-Hatch.jpg?itok=3NoK7LPV "Samuel Hawken. [Missouri Historical Society, Prints and Photographs Division, N38641]")
Christian Hawken, a respected gunsmith of Hagerstown, Maryland, taught his six sons and…
![Edward Hempstead. [Louis Houck, A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements until the Admission of the State into the Union, vol. 3 (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1908), p. 2]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2020-07/Edward-Hempstead.jpg?itok=OQ2N2erA "Edward Hempstead. [Louis Houck, A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements until the Admission of the State into the Union, vol. 3 (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1908), p. 2]")
Edward Hempstead, a prominent early Missouri attorney and politician, was born in New…