February 24, 1805, a Sunday at Fort Mandan. Two published journals in this corpus record the day: William Clark’s and John Ordway’s. Both describe the same labor — cutting the boat and pirogues out of the river ice — but they do not keep the same kind of page. Clark writes a command log of the post. Ordway writes from the working party around the hull. No published Patrick Gass journal for this date survives in this corpus.
Clark from the post
Clark opens with weather, then the boat:
The Day fine, we Commenced very early to day the Cutting loose the boat which was more difficuelt than the perogus with great exertions and with the assistance of Great prises we lousened her and turned the Second perogue upon the ice, ready to Draw out, in Lousening the boat from the ice Some of the Corking drew out which Caused her to Leake for a few minits untill we Discovered the Leake & Stoped it
He then turns to other business at the fort:
Jessomme our interpeter & familey returned from the Villages Several Indians visit us today
The ice work is one item among several. He dates the Sunday, names the interpreter, and files the leak as a few minutes’ trouble. He does not explain why the boat was “more difficuelt than the perogus.” He does not describe water coming up around the hull, or anyone bailing.
Ordway at the hull
Ordway’s surviving fragment begins in mid-sentence, already at the barge:
ployed cutting away the Ice from round the Barge, found that the Ice was verry thick clear under hir. we worked hard the water came up in places untill it Got all round hir. towards evening we Got large prizes and put under hir and with much adieu we Got hir started loose and hoisted hir Stern up on the Ice
Where Clark reports difficulty, Ordway supplies the reason: ice “verry thick clear under hir,” seepage until the water “Got all round hir,” then “large prizes” put under her to start her and hoist the stern onto the ice. He corroborates the leak in his own spelling, and adds the work that followed:
found She had a Small leak where the corking worked out as She came loose, bailed the water out of hir. Got out the perogue also.
Clark stops the leak; Ordway bails the water. Clark turns a second pirogue “upon the ice, ready to Draw out”; Ordway simply “Got out the perogue also.” Neither man gives a clock time. Ordway’s “towards evening” is as close as either comes to one.
What each man chose to keep
The shared vocabulary is the day’s technical fact. Clark writes “Great prises”; Ordway writes “large prizes” — the same levering timbers, each in his own spelling. Both record the caulking that pulled as the boat came free. That mishap impressed the officer who stopped it and the sergeant who bailed it. Only Clark names Jessaume’s return and the Indian visitors, the diplomatic traffic of the fort. Only Ordway describes ice running under the hull and water coming up “in places,” the texture of a man who was likely standing in it.
Clark calls the craft “the boat” and “the perogus.” Ordway calls the same hull “the Barge,” then “the perogue.” The difference is register, not disagreement. Read together, the two entries reconstruct a single Sunday’s labor without a third witness: Clark dates it and files the leak; Ordway, at the prizes, explains how the barge was actually moved.
