Lewis and Clark Expedition

in American history, an expedition dispatched by Thomas Jefferson to examine the resources of the far Northwest. When, in 1801, Jefferson took the oath of office as president, the Northwest was not well known. Alexander Mackenzie, factor for the Hudson Bay Company, had indeed traced the Fraser river to Puget Sound; some forty New England captains following in the wake of Captain Grey were making the long trip by way of Cape Horn to buy furs along the Pacific coast; and the agents of the Hudson Bay Company were bartering for furs at Mandan and other points on the Missouri; but, so far as known, no white man had seen a vast extent of country about the headwaters of the Missouri and the Columbia. It was supposed to belong to France or Spain or Great Britain, or to nobody; at least the American Republic had no title west of the Mississippi.

Jefferson and others had an eye on this region however. Several plans for exploration had miscarried. One of the first measures of the new administration was to provide for an adequate examination of a region believed to be rich in furs, timber and minerals. In the winter of 1802-3 Congress agreed to an appropriation of $2,500 for the purpose. Jefferson organized the party as a military expedition sent out by the War Department. Officially, it was a detachment of the regular army composed of officers and privates sworn in for a special service. The command was entrusted to Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's private secretary, in whom he had confidence. Lewis was given a captain's commission. He asked that William Clark, an old comrade of his Virginian boyhood, a fellow soldier in the army of "Mad Anthony" Wayne, be given a captain's commission and an equal share in the conduct of the expedition. The authorities thought best to make Clark a lieutenant; but the two friends arranged the matter between themselves jointly. Clark was addressed as captain from start to finish, and is called captain to this day. The roll of the expedition carried, first and last, twenty-nine enlisted men and officers, counting Captains Lewis and Clark, French and half-breed interpreters, Clark's negro servant, York, and an Indian woman, in all forty-five persons. Of the men who took part in the expedition, only one, Chaboneau, a Frenchman, was married; he had three wives. Lewis bade the president goodbye July 5th; he embarked at Pittsburg August 31st and proceeded down the Ohio. He obtained volunteers at the garrisons and was joined by Captain Clark at Louisville. The company proceeded down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to River Dubois, a point in Illinois, in American territory, opposite the mouth of the Missouri. In the meantime Louisiana had been purchased, but it was deemed wise not to give offense to Spain, which still laid claim to the region, and might lodge a protest against invasion. During the winter Clark drilled and disciplined the soldiers, while Lewis made several trips to the French fur trading village of St. Louis and picked up pointers for the trip. March 9th and 10th Lewis was the chief official witness of two cessions of upper Louisiana,--one by the Spanish authorities to the French, and a second by the French to the United States; so that no possible interference could be expected on the east side of the Rockies. The secretary of war furnished supplies.

It is evident that the expedition took ample time to get ready. What with supplies furnished by the war department and purchases made out of the $2,500 there was no lack. There was an abundant supply of powder and lead, seven barrels of salt, fifty kegs of pork, any quantity of "hulled corn," a bag of "beens" and another of "pees;" there were two tons of flour and one-half ton of biscuit; there were 100 pounds of candles, a bag of candlewick and half a hundred weight of soap. No less than 700 pounds of lard or "grees" were taken along. As to coffee and sugar, fifty pounds of coffee and 112 pounds of sugar were all that were required, but several barrels of whiskey were taken along for the stomach's sake. In fact, on a later occasion, the sentinel who was guarding the supplies was convicted by court martial not merely of drawing whiskey from a barrel for his own needs, but of permitting a comrade to do the same. Both were properly whipped on the "bear back at parrade." Whatever else may have been wanting there was no lack of discipline. Twenty-one bales of goods were taken for trade with the Indians in a region where money was useless. The chief boat in which the party proposed ascending the Missouri was a keel boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet of water. It was furnished with a sail and twenty-two huge sweeps or oars. A covered deck ten feet in height formed a forecastle, and a similar deck at the stern formed a cabin. The middle was furnished with boards that might be set up in case of attack. Smaller boats were taken also.

The expedition left the Illinois shore May 14, 1804, and "proceeded on under a jentle brease up the Missouri." The entire summer was spent in ascending this river. A few miles below Sioux City, Sergeant Floyd sickened and died. An appropriate monument now marks his grave. This was the only death on the entire trip. The ascent was laborious. When the current was swift, the men formed in line with a towrope, and when the flatboat struck on sandbars, they got it off as best might be. The hunters scoured the shores for antelope, deer, buffalo, and wild fowl. Indian villages occupied the present sites of cities. Indian hunters brought in supplies for the veriest trinkets. With a single exception, it may be said once for all that, so far from encountering hostility, the Indians, as yet unspoiled by contact with white men, were kindly and hospitable. Had the opposite been true the expedition could not have won through.

By laborious poling, pushing, towing, and sweeping, the party passed by the sites of Kansas City and Omaha and Sioux City and Yankton and Pierre and Bismarck, arriving November 2d at Mandan, a long, laborious 1,600 miles from St. Louis. Here they tied up for the season. Log houses were built and surrounded with a palisade, within which the party passed the winter. "Canoes made of a single Buffalow Skin" surprised Captain Clark, who, always entertaining, noted also the native dress, "Simply a pr mockerson, Leagin, flap in front and a Buffalow roabe, with their hair, arms, and ears Decorated." The white men saw a prairie fire, and had opportunity to join in buffalo, deer, antelope, wolf, and jackrabbit hunts.

In the spring the barge was sent back in charge of six soldiers. It carried copious notes of travel to date and four boxes and a trunk for President Jefferson, all closely packed with horns, skins, and skeletons, plants, native pottery, bows and arrows, an ear of Mandan corn, and articles of Indian dress. Among the animals thus represented were the antelope, blacktailed deer, coyotes, jackrabbit, prairie dog, big born, red fox, and magpie. Three cages were sent containing a "burrowing squirrel," "4 liveing magpies." Clark's crow, and "a liveing hen of the Prairie." Jefferson sent many of the specimens to his home in Monticello, and some are still to be seen in Peale's Museum, Philadelphia. We may add that Captain Lewis continued to collect plants, seeds, and other specimens not too heavy to carry. The grizzly bear was brought to notice by him.

April 7, 1805, the party, now reduced in numbers and having less freight, set off with two boats and six canoes for the head of navigation on the Missouri. Bird-woman, who had been stolen from her home in the Bitter Root Mountains, and who was the wife of Chaboneau, the interpreter, sat in her husband's canoe. She was eager to see the home of her childhood, and the explorers thought well to take her and her papoose along. Passing by the mouth of the Yellowstone, where now stands Fort Buford, and portaging at Great Falls, the boats were pushed along to the headwaters of the Jefferson fork of the Missouri to where a man could "bestride the channel." Here the boats were hidden away. Lewis and two attendants found an Indian trail and followed it persistently till they came upon a Shoshone village. He had difficulty in persuading the Indians that he was not trying to lead them into an ambuscade; but finally a party set out with him to bring in the expedition. The chief proved to be the brother of long lost Birdwoman. The Shoshones were in poverty, living largely on berries, but they did their best. Lewis and Clark hid their boats, and cached a lot of articles they could not carry. They bartered gay coats and other goods to the Indians for horses, and set out with an old Shoshone as guide to make their way through the Bitter Root Mountains. The streams were too swift for boats, and trails were hard to find. The party was nearly starved, but won through the Bitter Root Valley.

Ere they reached the mouth of the Clear-water, where Lewiston now stands, they had navigable water again. Food was obtained by hunting and from the Indians. Canoes were made out of tree trunks. The horses were left with the friendly Indians to forage, and the party, Bird-woman still with them, were afloat once more. October 16th the party was at the mouth of the Snake. A week later they were at the Great Falls of the Columbia, October 30th at the Cascades, and in November the weary pioneers reached the shallow bars over which the wide Columbia rolls its waters to the Pacific.

President Jefferson had given Captain Lewis a letter of credit to be presented to the captains of such ships as might be on the coast. This letter requested supplies to be paid for by the government, but the season was late; no ships dropped in. December 7th the soldiers began to build a rude stockade some fifty feet square, which they named Fort Clatsop. Log houses were built inside this stockade, and here the party spent what was left of the second winter. While not starving, the party was in reduced circumstances. The natives had been "spoiled" by contact with the summer fur buyers and showed an "avaricious spirit." The explorers exercised no small degree of ingenuity in the manufacture of trinkets with which to barter for food supplies. Elk, salmon, and berries were obtained. The cairn, or stone furnace, in which they fixed their kettles to boil down sea water to obtain salt is pointed out still.

March 23, 1806, the return began. A bag of precious salt was taken along. The horses were found all right. The Indians had been faithful and the ponies had wintered well in the river bottom on a kind of grass that dries into nutritious hay standing uncut. Here the boats, battered and worn by the rocks, were abandoned. The party was too impatient to rest long. A start was made too early. Snowstorms delayed the march in the mountains. Clark, guided by Bird-woman, returned by way of the Yellowstone, rejoining Lewis below what is now Fort Buford. At Mandan Mr. Colter obtained permission to leave the party for the life of a trapper. He returned to the mountains and is believed to be the first white man to set foot within Yellowstone National Park. Bird-woman, ever modest, efficient, and true, was left with her husband at Mandan. The rest of the party kept together under discipline and reached St. Louis, 4,000 miles from Fort Clatsop, September 23, 1806. The journey from the Mississippi river to the Pacific and back again, 8,000 miles, occupied two years four months and nine days. The same trip can be made now in a week. A mail carrier had just left St. Louis for the East. A messenger was sent to overtake him and hold him a day until letters could be prepared to put in the bag. There was no little rejoicing in Washington, for the expedition had been given up as lost.

President Jefferson had enjoined the duty of note taking. Lewis kept a journal and Clark kept a diary. The four sergeants wrote journals. One notebook by a private is in existence. Strangely enough, the records were never filed with the secretary of war, but were regarded as private property. There was delay in printing. We had no Smithsonian Institution in those days. It never occurred to Congress that the records of the trip were priceless. The leaders of the expedition were appointed to office and were kept busy with public duties. The journals were printed finally at private expense. Many versions appeared. It seems inconceivable, but a complete and properly collected edition of the various journals was not issued until that of Reuben Gold Thwaites appeared in 1904. This edition consists of seven rich volumes and an atlas, and is a treasure for any library.

Although the reports were not published promptly and in a creditable form, the description of forests, minerals, salmon, fur, and agricultural possibilities made a profound impression, and led to insistence on a Pacific frontage for the United States. The geographer has preserved the names of the leaders in both mountain and stream. The botanist has paid them a graceful tribute. In honor of Captain Clark, the name Clarkia was given to a phlox-like flower of the evening primrose family. Northwestern school children call it elk-horn from the antler-like branches of the petals. The bitterroot, a plant with a large, milky root and a delicate flower outranking its European rival, the portulacca, was named Lewisia for Captain Lewis. This is the plant that gives name to the Bitter Root Mountains, among which the expedition journeyed so painfully.