Missouri, Warren County, Marthasville![]()
Missouri was a beginning and end for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Planned by President Thomas Jefferson and carried out by the two captains and a large crew, the expedition is a keystone American event. When the United States took ownership of the Louisiana Territory - during a ceremony in St. Louis in March 1804 probably attended by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark - the country doubled in size, and expansion to the Pacific Ocean seemed possible. Two months later, the "Corps of Discovery" traveled up the Missouri River toward the Pacific and, they hoped, a new American era in trade, diplomacy and settlement.
"Corps of Volunteers on an Expedition of North Western Discovery"
After leaving winter camp at Wood River, on the east side of the Mississippi River directly opposite the mouth of the Missouri River, the crew made a final recruiting stop in St. Charles in May 1804. Most of the men were army sergeants and privates, but the expedition - with 45 members beginning the journey - also included Clark's slave York, a French-Shawnee interpreter, and French-Canadian, French-Omaha and French-Missouri Indian boatmen. Thanks to seven who kept journals, we can imagine the journey vividly. On the way west, the expedition spent 66 days in what is now Missouri. During the return to St. Louis in 1806, the same 600 miles took just two weeks.
The River Master
The Missouri River and its dangers dominated the early trip in spring and summer 1804. The 55-foot keelboat, suitable for the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, turned out to be a poor design for the Missouri. The swift main channel required the keelboat and two smaller pirogues to travel near shore, where snags, moving sandbars, rafts of driftwood and collapsing banks often blocked the way. Often the crew was forced to tow the keelboat from the riverbank. They repaired broken masts and towropes, were exhausted by exertion and heat, blasted by sand and tormented by mosquitoes.
The way upriver was more than a challenge: "it can hardly be imagined the fataigue that we underwent," wrote Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse. It was disaster waiting to happen but always avoided. In the struggle, the crew was drawn together with a singular purpose to succeed. On June 14 above the Grand River, Clark's journal tells a story of the keelboat in peril, but it tells much more about the expedition's collective willpower: "we saved her by Some extrodany exertions of our party (ever ready to inconture [encounter] any fatigue for the premotion of the enterprise)."
What They Saw
Every day in Missouri brought something of note. Beyond final outposts at Boone's Settlement and La Charrette, the expedition still met fur traders on the well-traveled Missouri River. Though the captains established daily routines, life on the river was hardly dull. Lewis almost tumbled off a cliff; Pvt. Whitehouse found a remarkable cave; and two hunters were gone a week and returned "much worsted." The crew saw signs of Indian war parties and Indian pictographs on bluffs.
Those who kept journals wrote of the beautiful summer landscape along the river, of forests, bluffs and prairies, caves, creeks and springs. As the expedition passed from "well timber'd" eastern Missouri to the "Beautiful prarie" of western Missouri, the scenery inspired descriptions that burst from the journal pages. Sgt. Charles Floyd, usually confining himself to the facts of the trip, wrote on June 4 of "a Butifull a peas of Land as ever I saw." On the western prairies, the normally businesslike Clark wrote that "nature appears to have exerted herself to butify the Senery by the variety of flours Delicately and highly flavered raised above the Grass."
The Meaning of Return
When the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis, it ended the dream of a Northwest Passage. The expediion reached the Pacific, but only after a hard crossing over the Rocky Mountains. During the journey, Lewis and Clark met nearly 50 Indian nations. Their scientific achievements were vast: they returned with detailed records of 300 animals and plants never described before, but unfortunately many of their findings were not published for almost a hundred years. Though a vanguard of American expansion, the expedition was far from the first into the West. The French and British had traded in and mapped portions of the Missouri River country during the previous century. Lewis and Clark were the first Euro-American explorers to ascend the length of the Missouri River from the mouth to its source. They also explored a large portion of the Columbia River and helped establish a U.S. claim to the Pacific coast. There are few if any American explorations more important or epic, and few better travel stories.
Expedition Highlights
DEC. 7-9, 1803
CAHOKIA
-Lewis, riding on horse from Kaskaskia, arrives in Cahokia the same day as the keelboat. He proceeds to St. Louis to meet Carlos Dehault Delassus, Spanish governor of Louisiana.
DEC. 12, 1803-MAY 14, 1804
CAMP RIVER DUBOIS
-The expedition party spends the winter at the mouth of Wood River (Rivière à Dubois. They refit the keelboat, acquire supplies and gather information and maps of the Missouri River.
MAY 16-21, 1804
ST. CHARLES
-The expedition waits in this village of 450 people for four days while Lewis completes last-minute business in St. Louis. In St. Charles, Clark hires several more boatmen and adjusts the boat loads.
MAY 23, 1804
FEMME OSAGE CREEK
-The boats stop at Boone Settlement to buy fresh food. For unknown reasons, Daniel Boone is not present.
MAY 23, 1804
TAVERN CAVE
-Clark explores Indian pictographs inside Tavern Cave. Lewis falls 20 feet down a 300-foot-tall bluff, but saves himself.
MAY 24, 1804
"RETRAGRADE BEND"
-The boats are forced to backtrack after the keelboat grounds on a sandbar and is spun around in the fast, shallow current. Though he would repeat the expression in the coming days on the lower Missouri, Clark calls the stretch "the worst I ever Saw."
MAY 25, 1804
LA CHARRETTE
-Lewis and Clark receive valuable information from Régis Loisel, one of the most experienced Missouri River traders.
MAY 26, 1804
LOUTRE ISLAND
-Captains Lewis and Clark sign orders outlining duties for the members of the party. Fearing war between the Osage and Sauk-Fox, the expedition is on military alert.
MAY 31, 1804
GRINDSTONE CREEK
-Lewis identifies the eastern wood rat, first of 300 plant and animal species described for the first time by Lewis and Clark.
JUNE 2, 1804
CLARK'S HILL
-Clark climbs today's Clark's Hill at the confluence of the Osage and Missouri rivers and has "a Delightfull prospect" of both rivers.
JUNE 4, 1804
"MAST CREEK"
-Sgt. John Ordway steers the keelboat too close to shore, and the mast breaks under a sycamore tree.
JUNE 4, 1804
SUGAR LOAF ROCK
-Clark explores today's Sugar Loaf Rock, while Lewis establishes camp along the river below.
JUNE 5, 1804
LITTLE MANITOU ROCK
-Clark sketches an Indian pictograph prominent on a "projecting rock." The rock was later destroyed in railroad construction. The day's hunters find evidence of about 10 Indians on the move, whom Clark believes to be a Sauk war party crossing the river to fight the Osage.
JUNE 6, 1804
ROCHE PERCÉE NATURAL ARCH
-The expedition passes a well-known river landmark, a natural arch on the bluff top.
JUNE 7, 1804
MONITEAU CREEK
-Lewis and Clark observe Indian pictographs on the bluff, see signs of bison and explore salt springs. Construction of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad tunnel destroyed the pictographs in the 1890s.
JUNE 8, 1804
LAMINE RIVER
-Clark and Sgt. Charles Floyd walk overland to the mouth of the Lamine and meet the boats. Shortly after, the expedition meets three fur traders returning from upriver.
JUNE 9, 1804
BLACKBIRD CREEK
-The keelboat is caught on snags, and the crew quickly saves the boat. Clark, impressed, writes "I can Say with Confidence that our party not inferior to any that was ever on the waters of the Missoppie."
JUNE 10, 1804
CHICOT ISLAND
-Lewis and Clark walk on the south shore through rolling prairie. The expedition is leaving the rugged, wooded landscape of the Ozark Border.
JUNE 12, 1804
BOWLING GREEN BEND
-At 1 p.m., the expedition meets a party of French traders with furs and buffalo grease. Lewis and Clark persuade interpreter Pierre Dorion Sr. to accompany them to the Sioux nations.
JUNE 13, 1804
GRAND RIVER
-The party camps at the Grand River mouth. Sgt. Patrick Gass writes "This is as handsome a place as I ever saw in an uncultivated state."
JUNE 14, 1804
"WILLOW PRAIRIE"
-The boat crews endure a day of fast, rising current on the Missouri. The keelboat strikes a sandbar and is saved "by Some extrodany exertions of our party."
JUNE 15, 1804
LITTLE OSAGE VILLAGE SITE
-The expedition camps across from the abandoned village sites of the Misssouri [sic] and Little Osage Indians. This stretch is "Said to be the worst part of the river."
JUNE 16, 1804
FORT ORLEANS
-Clark looks for traces of a French fort, built and abandoned in the 1720s. He also scouts for timber to make new oars. "The misquitoes and Ticks are noumerous & bad."
JUNE 17-18, 1804
ROPE WALK CAMP
-The crew stops over a day to make oars from nearby ash trees and replace their worn-out tow rope. Some men are suffering from boils and dysentery.
JUNE 21, 1804
CAMDEN BEND
-The keelboat crew struggles against strong currents by a combination of rowing, poling, and using the towrope and even anchor.
JUNE 23, 1804
JACKASS BEND
-A strong headwind halts the boats after 3½ miles. The expedition camps opposite a hill where Clark would later build Fort Osage.
JUNE 24, 1804
LITTLE BLUE RIVER
-Deer herds are so plentiful that the expedition kills eight.
JUNE 26, 1804
KANSAS RIVER
-Clark observes an "emence number" of now-extinct Carolina parakeets. Clark's is the first recorded sighting west of the Mississippi for this once-common bird.
JUNE 26-29, 1804
KANSAS RIVER
-The expedition halts to make observations of this important Missouri River tributary, and to rest the exhausted men after the most difficult stretch of the entire river. The Kansa Indians are away to the west hunting bison.
JUNE 30, 1804
LITTLE PLATTE RIVER
-Clark reports "the men becom verry feeble" from the 96 [degree] heat. Deer tracks "ar as plenty as Hogs about a farm." The keelboat mast breaks for the second time.
JULY 1, 1804
ISLES DES PARQUES
-A French boatman says the two islands here were pasture for the livestock of Fort de Cavagnial (1744-64). They may also have been farmed by the Kansa, whose old village lay just upstream.
JULY 4, 1804
INDEPENDENCE CREEK
-Before setting out, the expedition celebrates the 28th anniversary of the United States by firing the swivel gun. At today's Lewis and Clark Lake, Clark sees many geese and goslings, which "induce me to Call it the Gosling Lake." This lake is now in Lewis and Clark State Park.
JULY 8, 1804
NODAWAY ISLAND
-The captains assign mess duties to ensure "a prudent and regular use of all provisions." The three cooks are exempted from guard duty and other chores.
JULY 11, 1804
LITTLE TARKIO CREEK
-In the morning, Clark follows horse tracks and finds a horse alone on a beach, probably left accidently by Indians. Sgt. Floyd writes: "the men are all Sick."
JULY 12, 1804
BIG NEMAHA RIVER
-The men are worn down by a succession of hot days and halt to rest. Clark and five others explore the Big Nemaha valley.
JULY 14, 1804
SAND ISLAND
-A 40-minute-long "Dredfulle hard Storme" (Sgt. Floyd's description), strikes suddenly after the boats set out. Clark writes "the exerssions of all our Men...was Scrcely Sufficent to Keep the boat from being thrown up on the Sand Island, and dashed to peices."
JULY 16, 1804
FAIR SUN ISLAND
-Around noon, Lewis stops to make observations to reset his chronometer, which stopped the day before even though "she had been wound up the preceding noon as usual." The chronometer is essential for determining longitude.
JULY 18, 1804
-The expedition leaves the present-day boundaries of Missouri after 66 days of travel since leaving Wood River. Sgt. Gass writes that "This is the most open country I ever beheld, almost one continued prairie."
——————
SEPT. 9, 1806
BALD ISLAND
-The expedition re-enters today's state of Missouri. Clark reports that "our party appears extreamly anxious to get on, and every day appears produce new anxieties in them to get to their Country and friends."
SEPT. 10, 1806
ABOVE BIG NEMAHA RIVER
-Missouri River travel is no easier during the return. Referring to moving sand and snags, Clark writes "Great caution and much attention is required to Stear Clear of all those dificuelties in this low State of the water."
SEPT. 12, 1806
ST. MICHAEL'S PRAIRIE
-For the sixth time in the last nine days, the expedition meets a trading party heading upriver. Robert McClellan, an old army friend of Lewis and Clark, provides news and wine and whiskey to celebrate. Sgt. Ordway writes "that the people of the united States...heard that we were all killed."
SEPT. 14, 1806
OLD KANSA VILLAGE
-In the afternoon, the expedition meets three large fur-trading boats. That evening, "our party received a dram and Sung Songs until 11 oClock at night in the greatest harmoney."
SEPT. 17, 1806
ABOVE GRAND RIVER
-The expedition meets another trading party, led by Lewis' friend John McClallen. The groups camp together and exchange news. Clark reports McClallen saying "we had been long since given out by the people of the U S Generaly and almost forgotton."
SEPT. 19, 1806
LAMINE TO OSAGE RIVERS
-Eager to reach St. Louis, "the men ply their oars & we decended with great velocity." They are satisfied with eating pawpaw fruits and do not stop to hunt.
SEPT. 20, 1806
LA CHARRETTE
-During the return to St. Louis, the villagers of La Charrette are amazed to see the party has survived two years and four months away.
SEPT. 23, 1806
ST. LOUIS
-Reaching St. Louis about noon, the men fire their guns in salute. Clark writes "we were met by all the village and received a harty welcom from it's inhabitants." Lewis immediately writes a letter to President Thomas Jefferson with the first news of the journey.
——————
EXPEDITION FACTS and FIGURES
Instructions from President Thomas Jefferson
• explore Missouri River to headwaters
• find most direct route to Pacific Ocean
• assert United States ownership of Louisiana Territory
• negotiate with Indian nations
• record plants, animals, soils, weather, minerals
Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the "Corps of Discovery"
• three sergeants
• 24 privates, including Pierre Cruzatte and Francois Labiche, navigators
• George Drouillard, interpreter and hunter
• York, Clark's slave
• (+ eight French boatmen, one corporal, four privates, as far as Mandan villages)
• from Mandan villages on: Toussaint Charbonneau, interpreter; his wife, Sacagawea; and their son, Jean Baptiste
Expedition in Missouri
• Nov. 16-Dec. 12, 1803, 210 miles on Mississippi River (winter at mouth of Wood River)
• May 14-July 18, 1804, 604 miles on Missouri River
• return: Sept. 9-Sept. 23, 1806, on Missouri River
1804: Wood River to Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota
1805: Mandan villages to Fort Clatsop, Oregon Country
1806: return: Fort Clatsop to St. Louis
Epilogue
Sgt. Patrick Gass was first to publish his journal, in 1807. After Lewis' death in 1809, Nicholas Biddle, using Lewis', Clark's and
Sgt. John Ordway's journals, and with help from Clark and
Pvt. George Shannon, published
History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark in 1814. Clark's masterful map of the West was also published in 1814.
•
Meriwether Lewis became governor of Louisiana Territory. In 1809, at age 35, he died on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.
•
William Clark had a long post-expedition career in St. Louis: superintendent of Indian Affairs in Louisiana Territory, brigadier general of the militia, first governor of Missouri Territory, and again, superintendent of Indian Affairs. At age 68, he died in St. Louis in 1838.
•
George Drouillard, son of a French-Canadian father and Shawnee mother, joined a fur-trading company. He died in 1810 near Three Forks, Mont., in a fight with the Blackfeet.
•
York may have been freed by Clark around 1815. After entering the wagon freight business in Kentucky and Tennessee, he died, possibly of cholera, some time before 1832.
•
Sacagawea was perhaps 16 or 17 when she joined the expedition at the Mandan villages in 1805. She probably died in 1812 at Fort Manuel, in present-day South Dakota. Clark adopted her son and daughter.
• Four expedition members -
William Clark, John Colter, George Shannon, Robert Frazier - are buried in Missouri.
(Exploration • Native Americans • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
(North-west face of the pedestal)
Aux Efants d’Aups
Mort pour la France
(English: The children of Aups, died for France)
Abeille, Francois • Archier, Jules • Armelin, Jules • Auzende, Marius • Aymes, Frederic • Bagarry, Francois • Bagarry, Gustave • Bernard, Henri • Bernard, Louis • Blanc, Eugene • Boeuf, Jules • Boniot, Margelin • Borme, Gasimir • Bounic, Louis • Bonic, Lucien • Bourjac, Edouard • Bourjac, Leon Ed • Cablat, Jean • Carvonnel, Jn Bte • Chauvin, Albert • Chauvin, Marius • Chiapello, Leonge • Constantin, Marius • Cousseau, Jean • Dauphin, Charles • Dauphin, Louis • Dauphin, Victorin • Denans, Victor • Garron, Adrien • Grattorola, Henri • Jean, Gustave • Jourdan, Felicien • Jourdan, Louis • Lieutard, Georges • Meiffret, Albert • Pellegrin, Victor • Peytier, Marius • Regimaj, Paul • Ricard, Marius • Roux, Auguste • Taxil, Louis • Terrasson, Edouard • Turrel, Amie • Vasgoni, Charlers
Inaugure le 26 Septembre 1922
(English: Dedicated 26 September 1922)
Aux Efants d’Aups
Morts Pour La France 1939 – 1945
Article 1er
Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et egaux en droits les distinctions sociales ne peuvent etre fondees que sur l’utilite commune.
Decretes par l’Assemblee nationale dans les seances des 20, 21, 23 et 24 aout 1789.
Accepte par le Roi
To commemorate
In 1865 the Maryland Conference of the Methodist
Protestant Church established a “mission” or
charge circuit in southwestern Sussex County.
At the time local members of that faith were
holding meetings in Sharp’s school, a one room
school house located less that one half mile
from here. On August 21, 1868, the “Trustees
of the Missionary Society of the M.P. Church”
purchased land at this site from Thomas L.
Cannon, on which the church was constructed.
The building was completed and dedicated in
1871 by Rev. W.D. Litsinger.
1. Dig a huge hole with a glacier. Use the ice to grind up millions of tons of rock and dirt and make ridges around the edge of the hole.
One of the great routes for the pioneers coming west was the Chicago Road. The survey of the road began at Detroit in 1825 and followed closely the Sauk Trail which Indians had marked and traveled for centuries before the coming of the white man. Because of its many curves the road was likened to “a huge serpent, lazily pursuing its onward course, utterly unconcerned as to its destination.” Originally designed as a military highway linking the forts at Detroit and Chicago, the road proved to be more important in opening southern Michigan to settlement and as a westward land route enabling travelers to avoid the long voyage by boat around lower Michigan. By the 1830's pioneer families by the thousands each year were moving over this road in their wagons. By 1835 the Western Stage Company of Detroit was running two stages daily to Chicago. Much of the road was little more than an unimproved trail, making a trip over it an unforgettable and an uncomfortable experience. Buildings from that bygone age still stand along US-12, the Chicago Road's descendant.
The Bronson library originated in the early 1880s as the Ladies Library Association. In 1888 the township assumed ownership. Built with funds donated by steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, the Classical Revival Bronson Public Library opened on May 23, 1912. This structure typifies Carnegie libraries. Between 1889 and 1923, Carnegie generated community support for free libraries across the country with his generous donations.
On this site in 1798 Ewen Cameron built the first house in the town of Franklin. Cameron was born Feb. 23, 1768 in Balgalkan, Ferintosh, Scotland. He emigrated to Virginia in 1785 and from there came to Tennessee. Cameron died Feb. 28, 1846, having lived forty-eight years in the same log house. He and his second wife, Mary, are buried in the old City Cemetery. His descendants have lived in Franklin continuously since 1798 when his son Duncan was the first white child born here.
Williamson County's first courthouses, one log, one brick, were in the center of the square. This the third, completed in 1858 under the supervision of John W. Miller, is one of seven antebellum courthouses in Tennessee. The four iron columns were smeltered at Fernvale and cast at a Franklin foundry. It was used as Federal headquarters during the Civil War and served as a hospital after the Battle of Franklin. The interior was remodeled in 1937, 1964, and 1976. The annex was added in 1976.
On this site stood the home of John H. Eaton, U.S. Senator (1818-1829) and Secretary of War under Andrew Jackson (1829-1831). He resigned from the Cabinet after a scandal which reflected on the reputation of his controversial wife, Peggy. He served as Governor of the Territory of Florida (1834-1836) and as Minister to Spain (1836-1840). Eaton retired from public life in 1840. He sold this property in 1843 and lived in Washington, D.C. until his death.
