Introduction
No member of the Corps of Discovery save the captains themselves appears more frequently in the journals than George Drouillard — variously spelled “Drewyer,” “Drewyer,” or “Drueyer” by Lewis and Clark, who never settled on a consistent rendering of his Franco-Shawnee name. Hired at Fort Massac in late 1803 as a civilian interpreter, Drouillard would become, in practice, the expedition’s chief hunter, its principal sign-language conduit to Plains and Rocky Mountain peoples, and the man dispatched whenever a difficult task required skill, judgment, and physical endurance. The 283 entries tagged with his name span the entire journey from the lower Missouri in May 1804 to the return crossing of the Bitterroots in 1806.
Joining the Expedition on the Lower Missouri
Drouillard’s first appearance in the surviving record comes at St. Charles. On May 17, 1804, Clark noted simply:
“George Drewyer arrive.”
Within days he was performing the role he would fill for the next two and a half years. On May 26, 1804, Clark recorded that
“George Drewyer & John Shields, Sent by Land with the two horses with directions to proceed on one day & hunt the next.”
By June 7, 1804, Clark was sending him out with Newman to hunt as the party passed the Big Manitou; the hunters returned with three bears, having scouted the country between rivers and reported it “rich and well watered.”
The pattern set early — Drouillard ranging ahead or alongside the boats with one or two companions, killing game, scouting terrain, and reporting back — would never essentially change. On June 23, 1804, when Clark became separated from the party and was forced to camp alone in the bottoms, it was Drouillard who came through the dark to find him:
“Heard the party on Shore fire, at Dark Drewyer came to me.”
The Indispensable Hunter
The journals are saturated with references to Drouillard’s marksmanship and woodcraft. On July 11, 1804, Clark wrote that
“Drewyer killed 6 Deer to day.”
On July 31, 1804, near the Council Bluff:
“G. Drewyer Killed a verry fat Buck one Inch fat on the ribs.”
By the time the party reached the Great Plains, his ability to find game where others failed was already a matter of routine confidence. On September 2, 1804, Clark noted that
“G Drewyer R. Fields Howard & Newmon Killed four fat Elk on the Isld.”
This pattern intensified during the leanest stretches of the journey. At Fort Clatsop, where elk were the party’s principal subsistence, Drouillard was repeatedly sent out alone or with a small party. Lewis recorded on December 13, 1805 that
“Drewyer & Shannon returned from hunting havg. killed 18 Elk.”
When game grew scarce in early 1806, Lewis wrote on January 8, 1806:
“Our meat is begining to become scarse; sent Drewyer and Collins to hunt this morning.”
Even Drouillard’s failures were noteworthy — on February 9, 1806, Lewis recorded that he
“had killed nothing but one beaver”
— because his successes were the baseline expectation.
On the return journey, when the party desperately needed Indian canoes traded for, on March 17, 1806 Clark wrote:
“Drewyer returned late this evening from the Cath-lah-mahs with our Indian Canoe… and also a Canoe, which he had purchased from those people. for this canoe he gave Captn. Lewis’s uniform laced coat and nearly half a Carrot of to-bacco.”
On April 24, 1806, when the Wahhowpum tried to drive a hard bargain over the party’s now-useless canoes, Lewis recorded that
“Drewyer struck one of the canoes and split of a small peice with his tommahawk”
— a decisive act that promptly produced offers for the rest.
Sign-Language Interpreter
Drouillard’s mother was Shawnee, and he had grown up fluent in the Plains sign language used across an enormous swath of the continent. This skill made him essential at every diplomatic encounter where no spoken-language chain existed. When Lewis advanced ahead of the canoes in August 1805 to find the Shoshone, he took Drouillard with him. On August 1, 1805, Lewis wrote:
“I set out with 3 men in quest of the Snake Indians. the men I took were the two Interpreters Drewyer and Sharbono and Sergt. Gass.”
Ten days later, at the critical first contact with a mounted Shoshone, Lewis dispersed his men with sign-language instructions Drouillard had taught him: on August 11, 1805,
“I now sent Drewyer to keep near the creek to my right and Shields to my left, with orders to surch for the road.”
At Fort Clatsop and through the Columbia villages, Drouillard’s signs carried the burden of nearly all bargaining. On April 16, 1806, Clark sent him to the Skillute village to invite trade:
“Crossed the river and Sent Drewyer & Goodrich to the Skil lute village to envite the Indians to trade horses with us.”
The Great Chief, lame and unable to walk, returned with Drouillard.
Trusted Scout
When Lewis or Clark needed a man to be sent ahead, behind, or alone, Drouillard was almost always the choice. On February 12, 1805, at Fort Mandan, Lewis wrote:
“Drewyer arrived with the horses about the same time, the horses appeared much fatieged.”
On April 12, 1805, just above the Little Missouri:
“George Drewyer shot a Beaver this morning, which we found swiming in the river.”
On the upper Missouri, when Lewis killed his first grizzly with Drouillard at his side on May 5, 1805, Clark wrote:
“I went out with one man Geo. Drewyer & Killed the bear, which was verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill we Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him.”
When Lewis took the famous wrong turn up the Marias in early June 1805, it was Drouillard who scouted the rapid fork; on August 6, 1805, Lewis recorded that Drouillard had “informed him of the state of the two rivers” — that is, of the Beaverhead/Big Hole forks during a similar moment of decision.
During the bullboat-construction camp at the portage, Lewis on June 30, 1805 wrote:
“Drewyer and myself rendered a considerable quantity of tallow and cooked… Drewyer killed two [beaver] today.”
On August 21, 1805, awaiting the Shoshones’ arrival with horses, Lewis dispatched him again:
“Drewyer I sent with the horse into the cove for that purpose.”
The Pacific Winter and the Return
Through the long, wet Fort Clatsop winter, Drouillard’s hunting trips up the Netul and toward the prairies of Point Adams were the camp’s lifeline. Lewis recorded entries like that of January 28, 1806:
“Drewyer and Baptiest La Page set out this morning on a hunting excurtion.”
And February 4, 1806:
“Drewyer and La Page also returned to continue the chase in the same quarter.”
On March 2, 1806, Clark recorded one of the rare welcome arrivals of that season:
“Drewyer, Crusat & Wiser returned with a most acceptable Supply of fat Sturgen, fresh anchoves and a bag Containing about a bushel of Wappato.”
On the return, Drouillard hunted ahead through the Columbia plateau and the Nez Perce country, was sent on the horse-trading mission of April 16, 1806, and on May 16, 1806 his horse strayed and was returned by an Indian — one of the few times in the journals that Drouillard appears as the recipient rather than the agent of help. As the party prepared to recross the Bitterroots, Lewis on June 7, 1806 noted:
“Drewyer set out on a hunting excurtion up Collins’s Creek this evening.”
Character in the Captains’ Eyes
The journals do not give us a portrait of Drouillard’s personality in the way they do for Sacagawea or Charbonneau. He is rendered almost entirely through action: dispatched, returned, killed, brought, traded, scouted. Yet the cumulative effect is unmistakable. Lewis and Clark trusted him with the most consequential errands of the journey — first contact with the Shoshone, the trade for the canoe at the Cathlamet village, the scouting of forks, the procurement of meat in every famine. When the captains list a hunting party, his name almost always leads it.
A Note on the Record
This synthesis draws only on the sampled entries provided. Drouillard appears in 283 tagged entries in total, and many additional details of his service — including his role in the Marias River reconnaissance with Lewis in late July 1806 — are not represented in the sample above and are therefore not described here. What the record consistently shows, however, is a man whose name the captains reached for whenever the work required the highest reliability the Corps could muster.
