Meriwether Lewis: July 28, 1805

Sunday July 28th 1805. My friend Capt. Clark was very sick all last night but feels himself somewhat better this morning since his medicine has opperated. I dispatched two men early this morning up the S.E. Fork to examine the river; and permitted sundry others to hunt in the neighbourhood of this place. Both Capt. C. and myself corrisponded in opinon with rispect to the impropriety of calling either of these streams the Missouri and accordingly agreed to name them after the President of the United States and the Secretaries of the Treasury and state. In pursuance of this resolution we called the S.W. fork, that which we meant to ascend, Jefferson’s River in honor of that illustrious personage Thomas Jefferson [the author of our enterprize.] the Middle fork we called Madison’s River in honor of James Madison, and the S.E. fork we called Gallitin’s River in honor of Albert Gallitin. the two first are 90 yards wide and the last is 70 yards. all of them run with great volocity and throw out large bodies of water. in short they are three noble streams.

Source: Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1904–05). Public domain. Two days later, 30 July, Lewis wrote that they halted “at the place the woman informed us that she was taken prisoner.”