Yellowstone-Missouri confluence — John Ordway: April 26, 1805

Sent one man about 6 miles up the River Roshjone to See what
1 In Williams County, about halfway from the Little Muddy River to the
Yellowstone. The distance between these two points, by Lewis and Clark’s
calculations, was 46f miles, today’s camp being 24| miles beyond the Little
Muddy. The M. R. C. map gives forty-one miles as the distance from the
latter stream to the Yellowstone.
2 At five o’clock the party “proceeded on” a short distance and camped for
the night in Williams County, eight miles, by Clark’s measurements, below
the mouth of the Yellowstone.
3 “Roshjone” is a corruption of the French for Yellowstone. Thwaites
states (I, 339) that the name Yellowstone “appears to have been first recorded
(1798) by David Thompson, the British explorer.”
202 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS [April 26
discoveries he could make.1 one man killed a Goose another
killed a buffaloe cow & calf. Saw a flock of Goats Swimming the
river this morning near to our camp. Cap* Lewises dog Scamon
took after them [and] caught one in the River. Drowned & killed
it and Swam to Shore with it. Cap* Lewis took an observation
at 9 oC. and at 12 oClock, also at 4. he caught Several Small fish
in the River Roshjone at 4 the man returned who went up the
River this morning he Informed us that he went about 8 miles
up it to a large creek which came in on the S. S. & that the bot-
toms was large and covered with timber. &.C. he brought in a
live buffaloe calf, which had followed him about 4 miles.2 we
then heard that Cap* Clark & the party had come at the Mouth
of the River Roshjone about 12 oClock to day. Cap* Lewis Sent
a man down for a perogue to come up for our meat and baggage.
Cap* Clark Immediately Sent up a canoe. We moved down to
their Camp which was about two miles, our officers Gave out
one Gill of ardent Spirits per man. So we made merry fidled and
danced &.C.3 Camped for the night on the point between the 2
Rivers, a handsom place thinly covered with timber & a verry
large bottom. Cap* Clark Measured these two Rivers to day and
found the Missourie to be 337 yards wide only the water but at
high water mark 529 yards wide at this place, the River Roshjone
1 The man was Joseph Fields; the creek he discovered, named for him by
Clark, was in western McKenzie County. Coues supposes Fields to have been
“the first white man who ever ascended the Yellowstone.”
2 The docility of buffalo calves was well known to frontiersmen, and other
incidents similar to this one have been recorded.
3 Lewis records that on rejoining the main party in the evening he “found
them all in good health, and much pleased at having arrived at this long-wished-
for spot, and in order to add in some measure to the general pleasure which
seemed to pervade our little community, we ordered a dram to be issued to
each person; this soon produced the fiddle, and they spent the evening with
much hilarity, singing & dancing, and seemed as perfectly to forget their past
toils, as they appeared regardless of those to come.” The judgment of the
explorers concerning the importance of the place they had now reached was
confirmed by later events. About the year 1829 the American Fur Company
built Fort Union a short distance up the Missouri from the mouth of the Yellow-
stone. It soon became the. most important center of the Company’s operations
on the upper Missouri. It was the best-built post on the river, and with one
possible exception, the hest in the entire West. To it succeeded Fort Buford,
built by the U. S. government on the Missouri a short distance below the } el-
lowstone. Today’s camp was near the center of the thirty-mile square which
later constituted the Fori Buford military reservation. For a description of
old Fort Union see II. M. Chittenden. History of the American Fur Trade of
the Far West (New York, 1902), 958-60.
1805] SERGEANT ORDWAY’S JOURNAL 203
is 297 y^ water, high water mark 858 yards wide, the distance
from the mouth of the Missourie to the mouth of the River Rosh-
jone is 1888 miles, from Fort Mandane 279 miles from the little
Missourie River 186 miles, the River Roshjone is not quite as
rapid as the missourie the men killed to day Several buff aloe & buff-
aloe calfs the calfs are the best meat we find at this time one man
killed a White Swan in a large pond 4 or 5 miles from this, be-
tween the two Rivers, this pond the men that Saw it Judged it
to be 4 miles long, & 200 y^ across, &.C. on the River Roshjone
and the Missourie the Game is verry pleanty, viz. buffaloe Elk
Deer Goats Some bair. pleanty of beaver, fish &C and a beauti-
ful country around in every direction, considerable of timber
Such as cottonwood Elm arsh &.C. the Latidude at this place
is [blank in Ms.] North.