2/17/2011:
For the rock-bottom price of fifteen million dollars, the United States laid claim to 828,000 square miles of the North American interior. Yet, many believed the Louisiana Purchase to be a mistake. The United States paid only five cents per acre, but much of the land was believed to be desert. Indeed, the US government knew little about the territory and so sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their famous expedition of discovery. Lewis and Clark’s journey was a resounding success. Yet the intrepid explorers only scratched the surface of what the territory contained, and subsequent explorers were sent to fully survey and map the newly acquired land.
Perhaps one of the most talented of these cartographers was Nicolas Nicollet. Born in Savoy, France in 1786, Nicollet established himself as one of his country’s most respected scientists. However, following the French stock market crash of 1830, Nicollet was left disgraced and destitute. With little money to his name, Nicollet left his native land and immigrated to the United States in search of work.
Nicollet found employment as a cartographer and soon made a name for himself. His stunningly detailed maps of the American South, along with his work on the Upper Mississippi caught the attention of the US government, who subsequently hired Nicollet to survey the Upper Mississippi River system.
Assisted by John Charles Frémont, a lieutenant in the Topographical Bureau of the Corps of Engineers, Nicollet surveyed the land between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, becoming the first to provide detailed maps of much of what is now eastern North Dakota. Along with the duty of mapping came the privilege of naming landmarks. After camping beside an unnamed lake near present-day Binford, North Dakota, the men decided upon the name of “Jessie” in honor of Jessie Ann Benton, the daughter of a Missouri Senator and the future wife of Charles Frémont. Given the importance of Nicolas Nicollet’s work and Lake Jessie’s connection to his 1839 expedition, the lake was made a State Historic Site on this date in 1955: preserving the memory of Nicolas Nicollet, one of the many intrepid explorers and surveyors of the Dakota Plains, men who followed in the wake of Lewis and Clark to help bring to fruition the vision of America’s westward expansion.
Dakota Datebook written by Lane Sunwall
Sources
Bray, Martha Coleman. "Joseph Nicolas Nicollet, Geologist." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114, no. 1 (1970): 37-59.
Lottinville, Savoie. "Review: The Journals of Joseph N. Nicollet: A Scientist on the Mississippi Headwaters, with Notes on Indian Life."." Minnesota History Magazine 42, no. 5 (1971): 192.
National Park Service, "Louisiana Purchace" http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/circa1804/heritage/louisianapurchase/louisianapurchase.htm (accessed February 11, 2011).
Thrower, Norman J. W. "Review: Joseph Nicollet and His Map." Minnesota History Magazine 47, no. 5 (1981): 206-207.