Beaver Dick

Richard "Beaver Dick" Leigh (9 January 1831, Manchester – 29 March 1899, Wilford, Idaho) was an English-American trapper, scout, and guide at the end of the 19th century, primarily in the area now known as Jackson Hole, Wyoming, United States.

[3] He corresponded frequently with his longtime friend, Charles B. Penrose, leaving behind diaries and letters that provide a personal, historical, and geographical documentation of the area.

[5] He briefly lived in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania before joining the Hudson Bay Company in Canada, where he became a fur trapper in the northwestern territories.

[5] In 1863, Leigh married a Shoshone woman named Jenny, establishing a home on the western slopes of the Teton Range.

While camped near Two Ocean Creek in 1891, he was visited by Theodore Roosevelt and his hunting party and Teddy and Richard conversed about their experiences and stories.

Letter from Beaver Dick Leigh describing the smallpox sickness and deaths of Jenny and five children can be found in Margaret and Olaus Murie’s book Wapiti Wilderness, p. 89.