John Shields, 5th of the 10 brothers, was a scout and gunsmith and was one of the 29 members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Oregon in 1803.  He walked scouting for hostile Indians, all the way from the mouth of the Kansas River to the headwaters of the Missouri, then down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, being one of the first to make that perilous transcontinental journey, probably the first white man to do so since, as scout, he was a distance ahead of the other members of the expedition.  He is praised highly in the official reports of Merriweather Lewis and William Clark.

This man has been most often referred to as the blacksmith, gunsmith or general mechanic of the Expedition's personnel.  Like Sergeant Gass, who specialized, among other things as a carpenter, it was Shields who the captains extol as the man who improvised from what little metallic products they carried with them; kept the firearms in good working order, and probably formed their rounds of ammunition by melting the lead from cannisters which contained their gun powder.

Both Olin Wheeler and Pat Cutright make the observation that William Bratton and Alexander Williard, in addition to John Shields, were blacksmiths.  Cutright comments: "When repair work lagged, and imaginative brave saved the day by conceiving the idea that Shields' artistry could make an iron battle-ax for him.  Shields obliged with the result that he and his helpers had a rash of requests for these formidable weapons.  They had a zest for their work, however, since they were rewarded by watching their stockpile of Indian corn grow larger and larger.  So, due to the hardihood of the hunters and the industry of Shields, Bratton and Willard, the explorers had plenty of food and good variety throughout the winter."

John's discharge form the military is dated October 10, 1806.  He received his pay plus a warrant for land in Franklin County, Missouri.  He spent a year trapping with Daniel Boone in Missouri and Indiana and he died in December 1809.

Dr. Coues indicates that the captains named two streams for John Shields.  One a branch of the Missouri, which flows in a northwesterly direction into the south side of the Missouri a few miles below the Great Falls.  Today's cartography indicates this waterway to be Highwood Creek.  The other stream is a tributary of the Yellowstone River.  Shields was in Captain Clark's party on the return journey across today's Bozeman Pass from the Three Forks of the Missouri, and eventually to the descent of the Yellowstone to its confluence with the Missouri.  Captain Clark gave the name of Shields River to the first principal tributary which flows southward from out of the Crazy Horse Mountains.  This stream is just east of the Bozeman Pass divide and flows into the Yellowstone River near Livingston, Montana.  Modern maps indicate this to be Shields River in Park County, Montana, and the waterway remains a lasting tribute to this important member of the great exploration.

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The Strange Alloway Family