Fort Mandan, preparing for departure — John Ordway: February 25, 1805
The crew prepared rollers and assembled a windlass to haul their boats up onto the high bank. In the afternoon they successfully pulled up both pirogues, managing one without even needing the windlass. They then attempted to haul up the larger barge, but their elk-skin rope kept breaking. After repeated mending, they got the barge moving smoothly, but nightfall forced them to stop work and leave it resting on the skids until the next day.
and gitting rollers, brought up the peaces for the windless and
all things Got ready to hall up the pearogues on the high bank,
in the afternoon we hailed up the 2 perogues without any diffi-
culty, one of them we hailed up without the help of the windless,
we then made an attempt at the Barge but our Rope which was
made of elk Skin broke Several times, we mended it [and] got
hir cleverly Started, night came on and obledgd us to leave hir
laying on the Skids.
Read this entry in modern English AI-translated
And getting rollers, we brought up the pieces for the windlass and got all things ready to haul up the pirogues onto the high bank. In the afternoon we hauled up the two pirogues without any difficulty; one of them we hauled up without the help of the windlass. We then made an attempt at the Barge, but our rope, which was made of elk skin, broke several times. We mended it and got her cleverly started, but night came on and obliged us to leave her lying on the skids.
This modernization is AI-generated for accessibility. The original above is the authoritative version.
Entities mentioned in this entry
Auto-extracted from the entry text. Hover any entity for context.
