Near Platte River, Council Bluffs area — John Ordway: July 22, 1804

Timbered land and a good place to encamp we proceeded on
along a high bank S. S. hand some praries along this bank to
the hills which commenced about 10 miles above G. R. Piatt, we
passed on up a Creek on the N. called Marringua (French)
Musquetoe (English) Creek3 which comes in behind a willow
Island, we proceeded on 12 miles from G. R. Plate and encamped
1 The Platte is one of the great tributaries of the Missouri, draining most of
Nebraska and portions of Colorado and Wyoming. Brackenridge, who ascend-
ed the Missouri in 1811 in the company of a party of traders, relates that voy-
agers on the Missouri regarded the Platte as a point of as much importance
as mariners do the equinoctial line. All who had not passed it before must
treat or submit to be shaved, and the occasion was one of much merriment.
The portion of the river beginning at this point was regarded as the upper
Missouri. Early Western Travels, VI, 77. For a similar custom among the
watermen of the Mississippi upon arriving at the Grand Tower see Lewis’
journal, ante, 65.
2 Modern Papillion or Big Papillion Creek; its source is near South Omaha,
and its month a mile above the mouth of the Platte.
3 Still known as Mosquito Creek. It (lows across Harrison and Pottawat-
tamie counties, Iowa, joining the Missouri near the southern boundary of
the latter. Formerly its mouth was several miles farther south, in Mills County.
The M. R. (‘.. map represents the present mouth of the Mosquito as fifteen
miles above the mouth of the Platte, and the old mouth as nine miles above
the latter. This agrees with Clark’s statement, which placed the Mosquito
nine miles above the Platte.
1804] SERGEANT ORDWAY’S JOURNAL 101
at 11 oClock on the N. Side of the Missourie at a point convenient
for observations & we cleared away, the willows & pitched our
Tents and built boweries &. C.1