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Expedition began
Jefferson chose his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, an intelligent and literate man who also possessed skills as a frontiersman. Lewis in turn solicited the help of William Clark. Jefferson hoped that Lewis and Clark would find a water route linking the Columbia and Missouri rivers. This water link would connect the Pacific Ocean with the Mississippi River system, thus giving the new western land access to port markets out of the Gulf of Mexico and to eastern cities along the Ohio River. -
Period: to
Lewis and Clark expedition
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Haynes-Lewis Escapes Death
May 23, 1804
Pinnacles of rock rise three hundred feet above the river at Tavern Cave, on the south side of the Missouri near the Femme Osage River. While some of the men explored the cave, Lewis climbed the cliff above it, for a view of the surrounding terrain. At the summit he slipped and almost fell. Just short of disaster, Clark wrote in his journal, "he saved himself by the assistance of his Knife." —Michael Haynes -
Osage River
At 4 P.M. on 1 June 1804, the expedition arrived at the mouth of the Osage River (left fork in photo), one of the major Indian fords on the lower Missouri. From a promontory between the rivers, Clark wrote: "I had a delightfull prospect of the Missouries up & down, also the Osage R. up." -
Confluence, Platte and Missouri Rivers
"we found great dificuelty in passing around the Sand at the mouth." The problems they encountered have been wiped away by twentieth-century river engineering. It's possible that the Missouri River at this confluence was four to eight times wider and much shallower in 1804 than it is today. -
Bull Boats
Indians stole the horses the second night out, so Pryor and his men constructed "bull boats" and floated down the Yellowstone River, catching up with Clark's contingent on August 8 a few miles down the Missouri from today's Williston, North Dakota. -
Sacagawea Meets Lewis and Clark
This most likely was Lewis and Clark's first encounter with the woman who was to play a significant role in the success of the Expedition, not as a guide, as the old legend has it, but as an interpreter—with Charbonneau's help—between the captains and her people. Her name is Sacagawea, a teen-age girl about 17 years of age. -
Jefferson River at Cardwell, MT
The maps of John Evans, which Lewis and Clark had gotten in St. Louis, depicted the Rocky Mountains as four separate chains, among which the headwaters of the Missouri River flowed. From their water-level perspective, the captains had already identified the first gate, at a landmark Lewis called simply "the tower." -
Deserts of America
Upper Missouri River Breaks
28 miles northeast of Winifred, Montana -
A most inchanting view
There are ninety different named mountain ranges in the present states of Montana and Idaho together, and from the linked sketch-map showing their relative locations one can imagine how hard it would be to tell one from another at ground level, even today. -
Very Remarkable Point--Tongue Point, in the Columbia's Estuary
n November 25, 1805, the Corps canoed up the north side of the Columbia to the vicinity of Pillar Rock, which is about a half mile southwest of today's village of Altoona, Washington. -
Imagining the Northwest
Fort Clatsop, 14 February 1806 I completed a map of the Countrey through which we have been passing from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Missouri to this place. In the Map the Missouri, Jefferson's river, the S.E. branch of the Columbia or Lewis's river, Koos-koos-ke and Columbia, from the enterance of the S. E. fork to the pacific Ocian, as well as a part of Clark's river and our track across the Rocky Mountains, are laid down by celestial observations and Survey.--Clark -
Independence Day
As every American knows, Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Four days later the people of Philadelphia celebrated the event with a parade, a bonfire, and volleys of gunfire. "The bells rang all day and almost all night," wrote John Adams. -
The Missouri Meets the Mississippi
Clark recorded: "Capts. Lewis & Clark wintered at the enterance of a Small river opposite the Mouth of Missouri Called wood River, where they formed their party, Composed of robust Young Backwoodsmen of Character." -
Return
Lewis and Clark are treated as national heroes. They return to Washington, D.C. The men receive double pay and 320 acres of land as reward, the captains get 1,600 acres. Lewis is named governor of the Louisiana Territory, Clark is made Indian agent for the West and brigadier general of the territory's militia.
