George Drouillard (1773–1810) was a civilian interpreter, scout, hunter, and cartographer, hired for Lewis and Clark's Voyage of Discovery to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804–1806, in search of a water route to the Pacific Ocean. He later worked as a guide and trapper for Manuel Lisa on the upper Missouri River, joining his Missouri Fur Company in 1809. It is believed that Drouillard was killed in what is now the state of Montana while trapping beaver, in an attack by the Blackfeet or Gros Ventre tribes. Early life George Drouillard was born into the Shawnee nation in 1773 (or 1775) in the present-day Olde Sandwich Towne, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, son of Pierre Drouillard, a French Canadian, and Asoundechris Flat Head, a Shawnee. At the time of the American Revolutionary War, Pierre Drouillard was employed by the British Indian Department as a trader and interpreter of the Huron language, of the Iroquoian language family. Pierre Drouillard was commissioned as a captain by the British army. Drouillard is credited with saving the life of colonist and explorer Simon Kenton, held as a prisoner of the Shawnee at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1778. He brought gifts to trade for Kenton's life and said the British needed to interrogate the man about revolutionary activities on the frontier. As a boy, George Drouillard learned to read and write. He then acquired frontier skills by becoming a hunter, a trapper, and a cartographer. He grew up speaking Shawnee, French, and English. He also was proficient at the sign language common among Native American peoples of different language families. Lewis and Clark Expedition At age 28, Drouillard was hired by Captain Meriwether Lewis for the United States' official expedition into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. He went to Tennessee in late 1803 to escort eight volunteers of the party to St. Louis, where the Corps of Discovery was wintering at Fort Dubois outside the city. Only four of the volunteers were accepted by Lewis and Clark. The expedition departed St. Louis in early 1804. Lewis, who mentioned Drouillard often in his journals (referring to him as "Drewyer" in a transliteration of his French name), praised the young man highly as the most skilled hunter among all the men of the party. Drouillard often brought in six elk per day, and one day he killed eleven elk. Both his hunting and interpretive skills helped the