Six weeks at Pittsburgh

Meriwether Lewis reached Pittsburgh on July 15, 1803, and found the Ohio low. The boat he had ordered was not ready. Its builder had promised it for July 20 and missed the date; Lewis called on him every day and wrote to Jefferson that he would go on even if he could make only a mile a day. On July 22 a letter from Jefferson reached him with the news that the treaty ceding Louisiana had arrived in Washington.

The boat was finished at seven in the morning on August 31, and Lewis left Pittsburgh that day, at ten by his letter to Jefferson of September 8. His journal entry for the day is dated August 30 and says eleven o’clock; it is probably misdated, since there is no entry for August 31. The party numbered eleven hands: seven soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial. Who the three young men were is not certain, and where the boat was built has never been established. Lewis wrote that he left with “a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial”. See Pittsburgh and the Forks of the Ohio.

August 31: Brunot Island and McKees Rocks

Three miles below Pittsburgh, on the first day of the descent, the boat halted a few minutes at the island Lewis called Bruno’s Island. Gentlemen on shore invited him to try the air gun he had bought, and he fired it seven times at fifty-five yards. Then a guest, Blaze Cenas, who did not know how to manage the gun, let it go off. The ball passed through the hat of a woman about forty yards away and cut her temple. She fell, revived within a minute, and the wound proved slight. Lewis dated this entry August 30, but the departure was August 31. In Lewis’s words, “the ball passed through the hat of a woman about 40 yards distant cuting her temple”.

Below the island, at the ripple off McKees Rocks, all hands climbed out and lifted the boat about thirty yards. Lewis was told the river was lower than it had been in four years. Two more riffles followed before the tired crew stopped for the night, at a camp somewhere in Allegheny County that cannot now be located. Lewis gave the men some whiskey and was in bed by eight. See Brunot Island.

September 1: Neville Island and Woollery’s Trap

September 1 began in fog so thick that the pilot advised waiting, and the boat did not move until eight. While they waited Lewis wrote out his explanation: the fog came from river water warmer than the air above it, an idea he went on to test with a thermometer over the next few days. Then the crew worked down along the island now called Neville Island, Irwin’s Island in Cramer’s river guide of 1802.

At the little Horsetail riffle all hands labored in the water for two hours. At the big Horsetail they unloaded the goods and lifted the empty boat over. About five in the afternoon they reached Woollery’s Trap, which the boat could not pass even unloaded, so Lewis hired a man with a team of oxen and got off. They put in for the night, apparently just below, having made only ten miles. At the trap, Lewis wrote, “I therefore employed a man with a team of oxen with the assistance of which we at length got off”.

Lewis names no modern place here. Cramer’s later editions put the Horsetail ripple about halfway down the island and Woolery’s ripple, or trap, a little below its foot, where the channel crossed toward Middletown, today’s Coraopolis. Those descriptions place the trap near the foot of the island only to within about half a mile, and who Woolery was is not known. The 1821 edition calls the island Monture’s, the earliest use of that name found so far. Montour Run, which reaches the back channel opposite the island’s lower end, and the Montour Trail share the name; the trail’s Mile 0.0 trailhead near Coraopolis is about half a mile from the back channel and 1.3 miles from the foot of the island. The Montour Trail is not part of the national historic trail. See Neville Island and Woollery’s Trap.

September 2: Logstown

The day began two and a half miles below camp with another riffle, and at nine o’clock the boat reached Logtown riffle. The men unloaded, got over with difficulty after four hours, and then found themselves stranded again. Lewis hired one horse and an ox for a dollar to get across, and grumbled that the people living by the riffles made their living from travelers’ distress. The people there, he wrote, “the inhabitants who live near these riffles live much by the distresed situation of traveller”.

The riffle took its name from Logstown, a village of Shawnee, Delaware, Iroquois and others founded before 1748, which stood near present Ambridge in Beaver County. Lewis spent part of the day describing the valley: hills of three to four hundred feet, the river winding between them, and three banks or benches rising from the water. He noticed the leaves of the buckeye, gum and sassafras beginning to turn. The party camped about two and a half miles above Beaver, judging from the next day’s entry; Lewis does not describe the spot. Another riffle he passed that day, Waller’s, has not been located. See Logstown.

September 3: Beaver and Fort McIntosh

Fog held the boat until nine. While it lifted, a fur trader, Guy Bryan (Lewis writes Gui Briant), came up with two boats of furs and told him that if he could get over the bar at Georgetown, twenty-four miles on, he could keep going. Lewis called it some consolation. They passed Atkins’s riffle with ease and the mouth of Big Beaver Creek, today’s Beaver River.

Two and a half miles from camp they came to anchor off “Mackintosh,” the site of Fort McIntosh at present Beaver, and Lewis discharged one of his hands. About three miles on they stuck on what he thought the worst riffle yet and had to unload and drag the boat over with horses. They stayed the night about three miles below Beaver, having made only six miles. See Fort McIntosh, Beaver.

September 4: Georgetown and the state line

The river fell an inch overnight. About an hour after starting, the men in the pirogue, which had carried part of the load since Pittsburgh to lighten the boat, called for help: she had sprung a leak and nearly filled, soaking hardware meant as presents for Indian nations. Three miles on the boat stuck fast on a bar below Georgetown, and people from the neighborhood helped get it over.

At Georgetown Lewis bought a canoe with two paddles and two poles for eleven dollars, then found it leaked too much to use without repairs. About two miles before camp the party passed the line dividing Pennsylvania from Virginia on the east bank and from Ohio on the west. Lewis could see it as a strip of timber felled about sixty feet wide, meeting the river at the mouth of Mill Creek. They camped on the east shore, in what is now Hancock County, West Virginia, having made about thirteen miles. Lewis had the wet goods dried, oiled and repacked in oilcloth, set men to repairing the canoes, and hired another hand as far as Wheeling. The water was low and clear enough to see sturgeon, bass, catfish and pike. The National Park Service lists Georgetown, which is private, as a high potential historic site. See Georgetown.

September 5: Brown’s Island

Fog again. The party loaded both canoes, set out at eight and passed several riffles without having to hire horses or oxen, sixteen miles in all. Rain began at six in the evening and fell on and off through the night. They put in at the head of Brown’s Island, opposite present Weirton in Hancock County, West Virginia. It grew very dark before the canoes carrying the most valuable stores had come up, so Lewis had the trumpet sounded; they answered and arrived a few minutes later. He left the stores aboard under oilcloth and had the leaking canoes bailed through the night. See Brown’s Island.

September 6: Steubenville

Fog held the boat until half past seven. In two and a half miles the crew met four riffles and dragged the boat over three of them with horses, for which the owner charged two dollars. Under sail they passed Steubenville at two in the afternoon, six miles below the night’s camp. Lewis wrote that the town “is [a] small well built thriving place has several respectable families residing in it, five years since it was a wilderness”.

Lewis described the town as small, well built and thriving, with several respectable families, where five years earlier there had been wilderness. It had been laid out in 1797 or 1798 on the site of Fort Steuben, a federal blockhouse of the late 1780s that was gone years before Lewis passed. He does not mention the fort, and he does not say that he landed. Two miles below the town a squall on a riffle broke the sprit of the mainsail, and with his men worn out Lewis again sent out for horses or oxen. The oxen drew badly but got the boat over two more riffles, and the party camped on the west bank about four miles below the town, having made ten miles. See Steubenville.

September 7 to 9: Charlestown and Wheeling

Setting out at half past seven on September 7, the party passed Charlestown, now Wellsburg, three miles below camp: a handsome little village of about forty houses with a wooden bridge over Buffalo Creek. They reached Wheeling, sixteen miles on, at five in the evening. Lewis counted about fifty houses at the county town of Ohio County, Virginia, with an old stockade fort decaying at the mouth of Wheeling Creek, and noted that travelers caught by low water embarked here because the river below was deeper.

Here Lewis collected goods he had sent ahead by land with a merchant named Caldwell and met Thomas Rodney, bound for the Mississippi Territory as a judge and land commissioner. On September 8 he rested his men, bought a pirogue and hired a man to work her, dined with Rodney’s party, and wrote to Jefferson that on many bars the deepest water did not exceed six inches. Rodney wrote to Jefferson on September 12 that Lewis had unloaded and had his boat drawn by oxen over the riffles above Wheeling.

Dr. William Patterson asked to join the expedition, and Lewis agreed if he could be ready by three the next afternoon. He was not, and Lewis left at three on September 9 without him, camping six miles below, about three miles below present Bellaire, Ohio. The bread baked for the men in Wheeling had been left behind, and Lewis sent a corporal and two men back for it through a night of cold, heavy rain. The National Park Service lists Wheeling Wharf, today’s Heritage Port, as a high potential historic site. See Wheeling.

Where the trail begins

Since May 11, 2019, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail has officially begun on the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. Section 2502 of Public Law 116-9, signed March 12, 2019, amended the National Trails System Act so that the trail runs about 4,900 miles “from the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon.” The change followed a National Park Service study. Its significance statement found the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Louisville, Louisville to the Mississippi, and the Mississippi to Wood River nationally significant, and found the overland preparation routes from Washington, including Harpers Ferry to Pittsburgh, not nationally significant. Those overland routes, and Eastern Legacy sites east of Pittsburgh such as Harpers Ferry, are not part of the designated trail. The stretch described here is the trail’s first.

What the record leaves open

• The departure date. Lewis’s journal entry is dated August 30 and says eleven o’clock; his letter of September 8 says the boat was finished at seven on August 31 and that he left at ten. There is no entry for August 31, and the entry is probably misdated. The National Park Service uses August 31.
• Who was aboard. Lewis gives only numbers. Whether George Shannon and John Colter were among the three young men on trial is not settled.
• Where the boat was built. The builder and the yard have never been established.
• Woollery’s Trap and the channel. The trap is placed from river guides of 1802 to 1821, not a survey, and only to within about half a mile. Lewis does not say which side of Neville Island the boat took.
• The island’s name. Cramer called it Irwin’s Island through 1811, Irwin’s (now Neville’s) in 1814 and 1817, and Monture’s (now Neville’s) in 1821. No document of 1803 using the Montour name has been found.
• Distances. Lewis’s mileages run long: he put Wheeling 100 river miles from Pittsburgh, against about 90 today. The camps given here are approximate.
• Logstown and Waller’s riffle. Early guides disagree about which bank Logstown stood on, and Waller’s riffle has not been located.
• Seaman. Lewis first mentions his dog on September 11, below Wheeling, and later wrote that he had paid twenty dollars for him. Where he bought the dog is not documented.

Sources and method

Lewis’s words are quoted from his 1803 journal as printed in Quaife (1916), which is in the public domain, and each quotation matches that text letter for letter, with Lewis’s spelling. Each day’s full entry is on this site: August 30, September 1, September 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Gary Moulton’s edition was used to check readings and is cited for its editor’s notes, which are summarized, not quoted. Letters are from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 41. Places are located from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information System and OpenStreetMap; points marked approximate are estimated from the 1803 text and the river guides.

1. Meriwether Lewis, journal, August 30 to September 11, 1803, in Milo M. Quaife, ed., The Journals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1916), 31-43.
2. Lewis to Jefferson, Pittsburgh, July 15 and July 22, 1803, and Wheeling, September 8, 1803; Thomas Rodney to Jefferson, Wheeling, September 12, 1803. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 41 (Princeton University Press, 2014), via Founders Online.
3. Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, vol. 2 (University of Nebraska Press), editor’s notes, August 30 to September 9, 1803.
4. Zadok Cramer, The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator (1802) and The Navigator (1808, 1811, 1814, 1821).
5. Fortescue Cuming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country (1810), in Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, vol. 4 (1904).
6. Public Law 116-9, section 2502 (signed March 12, 2019; in effect May 11, 2019), amending 16 U.S.C. 1244(a)(6).
7. National Park Service, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Extension Study, Significance Statement (2016).
8. John S. Salmon, Lewis and Clark Eastern Legacy Study (National Park Service, 2007).
9. National Park Service, Pittsburgh to the Pacific: High Potential Historic Sites of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (2022).

The post Pittsburgh to Wheeling, 1803: Lewis’s First Ten Days on the Ohio appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

What the journal records: Pittsburgh to Marietta

Meriwether Lewis pushed off from Pittsburgh at ten in the morning on August 31, 1803, in a 55-foot keelboat built too late in a dry summer, with his Newfoundland dog Seaman aboard. His so-called Eastern Journal — first published in Milo Quaife’s 1916 edition, and transcribed among this site’s journal entries from August 30, 1803 onward — records the miserable first weeks: dragging the boat over riffle after riffle, hiring horses and oxen from riverbank farmers to haul it through, and losing his first experiments to leaky canoes. In the first week of September the party worked past Georgetown and Steubenville, and spent September 7–9 at Wheeling taking on a pirogue and supplies.

Steubenville, Ohio, today
Terrain360's Steubenville riverfront capture – 244 panoramas of the reach Lewis worked down in early September 1803.
Open the 360° tour ↗

The silent stretch: September 19 – November 10

Lewis’s journal breaks off after September 18, 1803, and no daily record by any hand survives for the next seven and a half weeks. The party’s movements are known instead from letters and later documents. They certainly passed the mouth of the Big Sandy — today’s Ashland, Kentucky — and the mouth of the Scioto at Portsmouth, Ohio in the last week of September, because the river was the only road; Lewis was in Cincinnati by September 28, where his October 3 letter to President Jefferson survives, full of the fossil bones he had just examined at Big Bone Lick.

Ashland, Kentucky, today
The Ashland landing on the Ohio, captured by Terrain360 – the Big Sandy confluence the party passed in late September 1803.
Open the 360° tour ↗

The Ohio at Portsmouth, today
Terrain360's 1,586-panorama capture of the Ohio past the Scioto mouth at Portsmouth and New Boston.
Open the 360° tour ↗

The Falls of the Ohio: the Corps is born

Lewis reached the Falls of the Ohio on October 14, 1803, and there the expedition became a partnership: William Clark came aboard at Clarksville with York, the man he enslaved, and the recruits history remembers as the Nine Young Men from Kentucky — among them Charles Floyd and Nathaniel Pryor. On October 26 the enlarged party pushed off from the Falls into a stretch of river where, once again, no journal survives.

The first camp below the Falls: West Point, Kentucky

Where did the Corps of Discovery spend its first night together on the river? No journal records it. Local and trail-community tradition — consistent with a day’s travel from Clarksville — places that first camp of October 26, 1803 at the mouth of the Salt River, where the town of West Point, Kentucky stands today beneath the bluff later crowned by Civil War–era Fort Duffield. We present it as exactly that: a well-rooted tradition on an undocumented stretch, not a journal fact.

West Point, Kentucky, today
The Salt River confluence at West Point – the traditional first camp below the Falls, captured by Terrain360.
Open the 360° tour ↗

Fort Duffield, above the Salt River
The bluff over the confluence, today preserved as Fort Duffield park.
Open the 360° tour ↗

The record resumes: Fort Massac to the Mississippi

Lewis’s journal picks up again on November 11, 1803 at Fort Massac, where the party engaged George Drouillard — the hunter and sign-language interpreter who would become one of its most valuable members. From November 14 the captains spent days at the Ohio–Mississippi confluence taking celestial observations before turning upstream for Camp Dubois. From here forward, the record on this site runs nearly unbroken to St. Louis in 1806.

Sources and method

Documented statements above rest on Lewis’s Eastern Journal (published in Quaife, 1916; public domain), the surviving 1803 journal entries transcribed on this site, and Lewis’s correspondence of the descent. The Salt River first-camp attribution is identified in the text as tradition. Undated passages within September 19 – November 10 are inferred from the geography of the river and the documented endpoints, and are worded accordingly. The 360° imagery is Terrain360’s capture of the Ohio today — explore the full river on the Trail Explorer.

The post Down the Ohio: The Expedition’s Forgotten First Leg appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

Did Meriwether Lewis Live in Georgia or Just Visit?

The early life of Meriwether Lewis is lightly documented when compared to the period of western exploration, his 1807-1809 Governorship of the Upper Louisiana Territory, and notes relating to Lewis in William Clark’s 1809 Journal. However, from a few primary sources that include Lewis family letters and customs of the Colonial Period, we can build a very creditable picture of early life for Meriwether Lewis.

Like most youth on the American frontier, young Lewis was involved in the daily routine of the family and plantation. However, his father’s death, when Meriwether was five years old, created an even greater demand on his accepting responsibility for the family and plantation he would inherit. The expression “he grew up fast” is certainly true for Meriwether Lewis.

In addition to his family and plantation responsibilities, the American Revolution left an indelible animosity for the British government, military and the British people in general. The dislike of the British was reflected in his interaction with the British Hudson Bay Company and Northwest Company traders at Fort Mandan in 1805.

The Lewis Family

Lt. William Lewis of Locust Hill, Meriwether Lewis’ father, served in the Virginia Militia, without pay, during the American Revolution, for a period of seven years and seven months. Lt. Lewis’s death in 1779 is attributed to pneumonia. Oral tradition states that Lt. Lewis got wet and chilled while crossing a rain-swollen stream in November, as he returned to his Revolutionary War unit after a leave with his family.

William’s legacy of service was carried on by his children: Jane Meriwether Lewis (1770-1845), Lucinda Lewis (1772-1773, died as infant), Meriwether Lewis (18 August 1774-11 October 1809), and Reubin Lewis (14 February 1777-17 February 1844).

Lucy Meriwether Lewis was a 27-year-old widow with three living young children. Necessity and custom in the 1700s called for the young widow to remarry. Six months after her first husband’s death, Lucy married Revolutionary War Captain John Marks on 13 May 1780.

The Move to Georgia

The Marks move to Georgia was influenced by the 200,000 acres General George Matthews had secured in the Goose Pond District along the Broad River in Georgia. The distance traveled from Virginia to Georgia was 462 miles. The route followed the lower Shenandoah Valley through the towns of Fincastle, Big Lick (Roanoke, VA) to Salem and Charlotte, NC before turning to the southwest across South Carolina and the Savannah River.

The Family Letters

A series of extant letters preserved in the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, give us a view of the life of the Lewis and Marks family starting in 1789-1792. These letters show that Meriwether Lewis traveled to Georgia but only to visit with his family. The letters definitively show young Meriwether was living in Virginia after 1789 through early 1792.

A letter dated 7 March 1789, from Meriwether Lewis to Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks, explains that he cannot visit with her until the Spring of 1790 because he is in school with “Mr. Maury.” On the same date, a letter to Reuben Lewis in Georgia gives a further clue that Meriwether may not have gone to Georgia in the emigration of the Marks Family.

“Dear Brother, I’m sorry it is out of my Power to comply with your Request of coming to see you this fall and therefore must refer it till some time, by Reason of my being at School. I set in with Parson Maury, soon after you left me, with whom I continued till Christmas…”

On 12 May 1789, fifteen-year-old Meriwether wrote his mother begging for a letter:

“Moste Loving Mother, I flattered myself with the Hopes of receiving a letter from you by Mr Creg… What language can express the Anxiety I feel to be with you when I sit down to Write…”

In a 6 August 1791 letter, Meriwether Lewis acknowledged that he had learned of the death of Captain John Marks. In the same letter, Meriwether advised his mother that he is attending school with Mr. James Waddell.

The letter dated 19 April 1792 opens with assurance to his mother that the family is well and he has learned that Lucy wishes to return to Virginia during the current Spring. With this news, Meriwether declares the letters have:

“induced me to quit school and prepare for setting out immediately. The man who is employed about the Carriage promises pointedly to have it done by the first of May.”

Conclusion

From these letters it appears that Meriwether Lewis only visited the Broad River community in Georgia and it was never his domicile. Nevertheless, the period of time between 1779 and May 1792 had a significant impact on his life. Clearly, Meriwether Lewis’ concern and love for his mother Lucy and the family is expressed even before he left Locust Hill at age 20 as a member of the Militia during the Whiskey Rebellion.

In addition to these letters expressing a constant theme of love and respect for his family, they convey Meriwether Lewis’ desire for an education. While other people had an influence on his life and determination to learn, his mother Lucy can be credited with inspiring his passion to learn and improve his mind. Lewis’ training and experiences as a youth set a pattern for living with a view of independent thinking for the rest of his life.

The post Meriwether Lewis’ Formative Years: Learning Experiences in Georgia appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

Lewis the Governor and Clark the Brigadier General

Planning, exploration and most of the reporting phase of the Lewis and Clark expedition was over. The realities of governing the complex Upper Louisiana Territory settled in on the newly appointed Governor Lewis and Brigadier General Clark. Editing and printing of the Lewis and Clark Journals by Lewis, and returning Sheheke and his family to their home at the Mandan Villages by Clark, were the primary responsibilities outlined by President Jefferson and Secretary of War Dearborn.

The time between March 1807 and October 1809 has been examined by noted Lewis and Clark writers and scholars. In August 1807, Lewis returned to his mother’s home in Virginia, following his report to Jefferson and the initial work in Philadelphia to publish the Journals. Lewis then traveled to Richmond in September to observe the Burr Treason Trial.

A document of more than 10,500 words describing Lewis’ Observations and Reflections relating to the American Indian People and the fur trade in the Upper Louisiana Territory is attributed in part to this period. This document shows that Lewis was developing a framework for governing the territory and establishing a solid economic foundation.

The Journey to St. Louis

Late 1807 or early 1808, Lewis departed Ivy, Virginia for St. Louis via the Great Valley Road, the Boone Trace and Wilderness Road. His traveling companions were John Pernier, his free mulatto servant, and Reuben Lewis, his younger brother. Lewis was honored at a public dinner in Lexington, Kentucky. Lewis arrived in St. Louis on 8 March 1808.

Governing in a Multi-Faceted Culture

In 1808, cultural changes were sweeping the country. The Spanish style of governing was still strong in the minds of the former French and Spanish citizens. General Wilkinson’s self-serving influence and Aaron Burr’s seditious followers had their own agenda. United States policy and the cultural differences with the American Indian Nations added a destabilizing factor, made even more difficult by the British efforts to influence the Tribal People.

During the expedition Lewis and Clark were truly military commanders without bureaucrats second-guessing every decision. Now people 1,000 miles to the East required written communications which slowed territorial governance. At the very best, it required a month of travel time to send documents or letters to Washington.

Accomplishments 1807-1809

Even with the challenges, a great deal was accomplished:

• Improved strength of Fort Bellevue (later Fort Madison) near the Iowa-Missouri border
• Packaged and shipped the 1807 Big Bone Lick bones to Thomas Jefferson
• Assisted in establishing the Missouri Gazette by editor Joseph Charless
• Clark crossed Missouri, guided by Nathan Boone, to build Fort Osage east of present-day Kansas City
• Negotiated a Treaty with the Osage Indians
• Lewis wrote and published the Territorial Laws
• Completed work on the Observations and Reflections for Secretary Dearborn
• Organized the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company
• Successfully returned Sheheke and his family to their home on the upper Missouri River
• Appointed Daniel Boone to serve as Justice of the Peace

Lewis’s Death, 1809

Governor Lewis’s tragic death on October 11, 1809, along the Natchez Trace near present-day Hohenwald, Tennessee, remains one of the enduring mysteries of American history. Clark would go on to ensure that the expedition journals were eventually published and continued his distinguished career as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis until his death in 1838.

The post Company Commanders to Bureaucratic Administrators: Lewis & Clark After the Expedition appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.