According to local legend, during the 18th century a French nobleman named Chavet received an expedition to explore uncharted regions of the New World. His fiancée, Adrienne DuMont, wanted to join him, but he refused because of the hardship and danger of the journey and because women were generally not permitted aboard ships. She then disguised herself as a young man, cut her hair, secured a position as the ship’s cabin boy, and was nicknamed Petit Jean, or Little John, by the sailors, who never discovered her identity. Chavet’s ship crossed the Atlantic, traveled up the Mississippi River and then the Arkansas River, and reached the foot of the mountain, where American Indians welcomed the crew to stay for the summer. As the crew prepared to continue in autumn, Petit Jean became gravely ill with fever, and her attendants discovered she was a woman. Chavet soon learned that Petit Jean was his fiancée, and after asking his forgiveness during their brief reunion, she grew worse and requested burial high on the mountain overlooking the river. Chavet and the crew buried her there and named the mountain in her memory, and legend holds that her spirit still hovers over it.