by
KRISTEN LOKEMOEN
It had
taken two days for William Clark and the men to make the
short journey from their winter camp at Wood River, on the
Illinois side of the Mississippi, to this small town on the
banks of the Missouri. Entering into the swift current of
the Missouri for the first time gave the Corps of Discovery
the opportunity to test their boats and themselves against
the river that would take them west. By the time the group
reached St. Charles, Clark knew that work remained to be
done.
The keelboat's load had to be rearranged to make it ride
more evenly in the water. One of the pirogues lacked
sufficient manpower, so Pierre Cruzatte and Francois
Labiche, men of French and Indian descent who joined the
group in St. Charles, were welcomed warmly. Both men had
been up part of the Missouri before and their experience
would be invaluable. Cruzatte's fiddle would also be a
happy sound to enliven quiet nights along the river.
Lewis' time in St. Charles was brief. On Monday, May 21,
1804, the party "set out at half passed three oClock under
three cheers from the gentlemen on the bank," according to
Clark. They made only three miles, camping that night on
the head of an island.
Meriwether Lewis' curiosity almost brought the expedition
to a quick end just two days out of St. Charles. Limestone
bluffs lined the Missouri River corridor in the eastern
part of the state. On the south side of the river, near
present day St. Albans, was a cave, "called by the French
the Tavern which is 40 yards long, 4 feet deep and about 20
feet high," wrote Clark, and it was a gathering place for
trappers and traders. Lewis climbed the bluff there to a
peak about 300 feet above the river. He lost his footing
and slipped, but was able to use his knife to obtain some
leverage and stop his fall.
Those first few days also were the last of civilization the
men would see until their return trip. They traveled
through the Femme Osage valley and what is now Defiance.
The legendary frontiersman, Daniel Boone, had moved to the
area in 1799, but there is no record of the men meeting.
La Charette, a small village of seven families, was the
last white settlement on the Missouri. Flooding and the
shifting of the river have washed away the site, but it was
located near present-day Marthasville.
Twelve to 14 miles of progress upstream was a good day in
those early stages of the expedition. The captains were
constantly measuring. How wide was the Missouri at various
points? How wide were the other rivers that ran into it,
such as the Gasconade and Osage? Lewis took celestial
navigations whenever possible. Clark was the mapmaker and,
though little experienced at the craft, would prove
astonishingly accurate.
The captains and other men of the Corps who kept journals
were delighted by the beauty of the countryside as they
traveled across Missouri. Each of the sergeants had been
ordered to keep his own journal and some of the other men
did as well. Sergeant Charles Floyd referred to an area
near present-day Jefferson City "as Butifull a peas of Land
as ever I saw." His overall impression was that, "The land
is Good."
Near today's Rocheport at Manitou Bluffs, they spied
pictographs, which Clark described as, "courious paintings
and carveing in the projecting rock of limestone inlade
with white red and blue flint of a very good quallity." In
the vicinity they saw signs of buffalo, encountered a den
of rattlesnakes, and hunters returned to camp with their
first bear meat. There was much to cover in their journals.
On June 9, Clark noted a site called the Prairie of Arrows
as one with potential for a fort. The area had had that
name since 1723. Its most likely source was Indians using
the native flint to make spears and arrowheads. In 1813, a
fort was moved here and the town became known as Arrow
Rock.
Western
Missouri
As they reached western Missouri, Clark spent a night away
from the group. Surveying his surroundings, he noted "a
high commanding position, more than 70 feet above
high-water mark, and overlooking the river, which is here
of but little width. This spot has many advantages for a
fort and trading-house with the Indians." The spot stuck in
Clark's mind and he would return to it in 1808 to oversee
the building of Fort Osage.
On June 26, more than a month after leaving St. Charles,
the party reached the confluence with the Kansas River. In
the area where one day Westport Landing and eventually
Kansas City would be built, Lewis decided to camp for a few
days. It gave the Corps time to dry out some of their
goods, make repairs to the boats and repack.
The Missouri River turned here and the men were now headed
north instead of west. On the morning of July 4th, the 28th
in the country's history, they fired the cannon on the
keelboat and named a creek flowing in from the west
Independence Creek. On the Missouri side, Clark noted a
lake that ran nearly a mile long and several miles wide. He
called it Gosling Lake, and it now is bordered by Lewis
& Clark State Park.
On July 17, 1804, Lewis rode on horseback along the
Nishnabotna River, which flowed south from Iowa. He said
that the land comprised "one of the most beautiful, level
and fertile prairies that I ever beheld."
This would be the Corps of Discovery's last full day in
Missouri until their return more than two years later. On
July 18, they moved beyond the state's present borders into
the territory that is now Iowa and Nebraska. In the
immediate future lay their first real encounters with
Indian tribes and the death of one of their own. In the
distance stretched the unknown continent.
Kristen
Lokemen is a staff writer and travel specialist for Show-Me
Missouri. She assisted in conducting several tours of the
Lewis and Clark Trail from Missouri to the Oregon
coast.