PROBABLY MORE than any other person in America, a boy named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau got to watch history being made firsthand without actually contributing to it.

Best of all, he got to do this by the time he was 3 years old. But like most 3-year-olds, Charbonneau's story doesn't end there.

About 1797, eight years before his son, Jean, was born, Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian explorer and trader, had purchased two captured Shoshone Indian women and taken them as his wives. One was known as Bird Woman, while the other was known as Otter Woman.

Bird Woman gave birth to Jean Baptiste Charbonneau in 1805 at Fort Mandan, N.D. Fort Mandan was the place where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stayed in the winter of 1804-05. In fact, Lewis and Clark hired Toussaint Charbonneau to serve as an interpreter to the Hidatsa Indians, and they allowed him to bring along his pregnant wife.

Toussaint Charbonneau spoke no English and did not speak the Hidatsa language very well, either, but his wives spoke Hidatsa well. As a result, one of the wives -- the one known as Bird Woman -- went along on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and was of more value to Lewis and Clark than Toussaint was.

Meanwhile, the infant boy Jean Charbonneau got to watch history unfold right before his little eyes.

His mother became very important in their journey while his father was generally not well-liked or respected by the rest of the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and most Americans have never heard of Toussaint Charbonneau or Bird Woman. Jean was the youngest member of the 30-person expedition.

They took Jean Charbonneau halfway across the country when he was just a toddler -- and they made the entire trip without the luxury of a plane, train or automobile, at a time when most of the United States beyond the Mississippi River was still unknown.

Then from the time he was 18 until age 24, Jean Charbonneau traveled throughout Europe and northern Africa with the nephew of King Wilhelm von Weuttemberg of Germany. When he was 44, he participated in the California Gold Rush of 1849.

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau remains the only infant whose image ever appeared on any U.S. currency. He achieved this historical feat with his mother when they were depicted on a coin in 2000.

In fact, while the name of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau or Toussaint Charbonneau might not ring a bell with you, his mother became so well-known that you don't even need her last name. Most people have never even heard of her last name.

The name by which you know her was Sacajawea. But you knew that all along, didn't you?

-- niemann7@aol.com