JAN BOSMAN was a descendant of Nathan and Geertrui Bosman from Amsterdam, and you could tell by just looking at him. He measured 6’2″, Dutch tall, and towered well above most others in the mid-19th century. By that time, the family spelled their name Bozeman, and Jan was John, but the town they named after him even today is crystal clear about it. Bozeman, Montana smells Holland.
VanderWeit, Vander Vos, Vander Ark, Tilleman, Bronken, all standard names in Bozeman. And there’s doctor Tim de Vries, who practices on Ellis Street, named after Colonel Guus Ellis who died in Gettysburg, leaving his mom Els van Hoorn in mourning for the rest of her life. Wherever you look around town, you will find streets named after Arnhem, Delft, Vermeer, Leiden, the Friesland Koch family, the Leerdam family Bogaert, you name it.
JOHN WAS a rascal. But a smart one. He abandoned his wife and three daughters when he learned that gold was being found far away in the Wild West. Get rich quick, he liked the sound of that, but the reality was of course a bit more stubborn. Everywhere he went, miners were already all over the place. The more he trekked northwest, the tougher the terrain, but still he was never the only one. Then suddenly it hit him: “Don’t mine gold, mine the miners.” John Bozeman decided to blaze a trail, to build a shortcut for other gold miners, wide enough for four-wheel wagons.
He charged for toll and armed guides, since such a trek sometimes took as long as eight weeks, and Indian tribes considered it their own land. A caravan of gold rushers could easily include a few hundred men and women, a hundred-plus wagons and an entire herd of oxen, and all that paid handsomely. John got rich. He bought a large plot of land, built houses and shops, plus a bar, and yet another. Before he knew it he had a town. During the day he dressed like a Frontiersman, in buckskin, but at night he put on striped pants, and a jacket, and splashed a perfume on his jaw. Women fell for him.
THOSE WERE the hours when the rascal in John Bozeman woke up. Dancing, drinking, his hands under the blouses of the ladies, unmarried or not. Bozeman was the boss of the Bozeman Trail, of the Bozeman Pass, a mountain pass through which all traffic had to pass, and also the self-proclaimed sheriff of the rapidly growing town that as of yet had no name. But boss or not, he made a lot of enemies among the men whose women he ran off with at night.
One of them went for a ride with him one day, and shot two bullets in his chest, one through each nipple. He then rode back to town and said that Indians had ambushed and killed Johnny Bosman. Everyone knew better, but no charges were ever filed. John Bozeman lived to be 32. Now that he was gone and no longer a threat to other men’s pride, they gave the city his name.
