Jesse Chisholm (1805–1868), half Scottish and half Cherokee, was an in-law of the legendary Sam Houston. Chisholm first arrived in the Arkansas Valley with some gold seekers in 1836 and returned with the Wichita Indians in the 1860s. He was illiterate but spoke fourteen Indian languages, could communicate in sign language with any Indian tribe on the plains, and was associated with the trading, freighting, and government-contracting enterprises of Mead, Mathewson, and Greiffenstein. He is best known for giving his name to the wagon-freighting route that became the famous cattle trail. Chisholm died of cholera or, as some claimed, from food poisoning contracted from eating rancid bear grease from a brass pan; he was buried in Indian Territory. Oil painting by C. A. Seward.
