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.
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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.
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The Ohio at Portsmouth, today
Terrain360's 1,586-panorama capture of the Ohio past the Scioto mouth at Portsmouth and New Boston.
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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.
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Fort Duffield, above the Salt River
The bluff over the confluence, today preserved as Fort Duffield park.
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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.

The Captains in Near-Perfect Parallel

Lewis and Clark’s entries for January 12 are textbook examples of the cross-copying that characterizes much of the Fort Clatsop journals. Both open with the dispatch of Drouillard and a single companion to hunt, and both close with the same administrative decision about meat distribution. Clark writes:

Drewyer haveing killed 7 Elk; I scercely know how we Should Subsist, I beleive but badly if it was not for the exertions of this excellent hunter

Lewis renders the same sentiment with only minor orthographic variation:

Drewyer having killed seven Elk; I scarcely know how we should subsist were it not for the exertions of this excellet hunter.

The phrasing is so close that one entry was almost certainly drafted from the other, or both from a shared field note. What differs is what each captain adds at the margins. Lewis opens with information Clark omits entirely — that the men sent to recover a missing canoe had returned empty-handed: “we therefore give her over as lost.” Clark, by contrast, develops the praise of Drouillard at greater length, contrasting him with the other hunters who “not being accquainted with the best method of finding and killing the elk” return unsuccessful. Lewis compresses this; Clark editorializes.

A New Rationing Policy

Both captains record, in nearly identical language, the policy shift that the seven-elk windfall prompted. Lewis explains:

We have heretofore usually divided the meat when first killed among the four messes into which we have divided our party leaving to each the care of preserving and the discretion of using it, but we find that they make such prodigal use of it when they hapen to have a tolerable stock on hand that we have determined to adapt a different system

Clark’s version substitutes “distribution of useing it” for Lewis’s “discretion of using it” — a small but telling drift, since Lewis’s word more precisely captures the disciplinary concern. The new system, both agree, was “to jerk it and issue it to them in Small quantities.” This is one of the relatively rare moments in the winter journals where the captains explicitly document a shift in camp administration, and the doubled record underscores its perceived importance.

What Ordway and Gass Preserve

Ordway, writing in his characteristically clipped register, confirms the bare facts: “3 men went again to look for the canoe but did not find it… the 2 hunters who went out this morning came in had killed 7 Elk within about 2 miles of the f[ort].” The detail of distance — “within about 2 miles” — appears nowhere in the captains’ accounts and is the kind of practical, spatial information Ordway often supplies that the officers omit.

Gass’s entry illustrates a different problem: his published narrative compresses several days into one paragraph. His text for this period describes men “sent to the salt works,” others “drying and taking care of the meat; and in dressing elk skins for mockasins, which is a laborious business.” The complaint about moccasin-making — “we have no alternative in this part of the country” — is pure Gass, and it captures the texture of enlisted labor that Lewis and Clark, focused on hunting yields and rationing policy, do not record. Gass also folds in events of January 14, 16, and 17, including a visit by “8 of the natives of the Clatsop nation,” suggesting his manuscript or its later editor consolidated entries.

Patterns of the Day

Three patterns emerge. First, Lewis and Clark function as a single editorial voice on matters of policy and praise, with Lewis tending toward precision and Clark toward emphasis. Second, Ordway supplies quantitative detail — distances, counts, locations — that the captains routinely omit. Third, Gass alone registers the unglamorous skin-dressing and salt-making that filled the days between Drouillard’s hunts. Together, the four entries document not just what happened on January 12, but how rank and role shaped what each man thought worth writing down.

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No member of the Corps of Discovery save the captains themselves appears more frequently in the journals than George Drouillard — variously spelled “Drewyer,” “Drewyer,” or “Drueyer” by Lewis and Clark, who never settled on a consistent rendering of his Franco-Shawnee name. Hired at Fort Massac in late 1803 as a civilian interpreter, Drouillard would become, in practice, the expedition’s chief hunter, its principal sign-language conduit to Plains and Rocky Mountain peoples, and the man dispatched whenever a difficult task required skill, judgment, and physical endurance. The 283 entries tagged with his name span the entire journey from the lower Missouri in May 1804 to the return crossing of the Bitterroots in 1806.

Joining the Expedition on the Lower Missouri

Drouillard’s first appearance in the surviving record comes at St. Charles. On May 17, 1804, Clark noted simply:

“George Drewyer arrive.”

Within days he was performing the role he would fill for the next two and a half years. On May 26, 1804, Clark recorded that

“George Drewyer & John Shields, Sent by Land with the two horses with directions to proceed on one day & hunt the next.”

By June 7, 1804, Clark was sending him out with Newman to hunt as the party passed the Big Manitou; the hunters returned with three bears, having scouted the country between rivers and reported it “rich and well watered.”

The pattern set early — Drouillard ranging ahead or alongside the boats with one or two companions, killing game, scouting terrain, and reporting back — would never essentially change. On June 23, 1804, when Clark became separated from the party and was forced to camp alone in the bottoms, it was Drouillard who came through the dark to find him:

“Heard the party on Shore fire, at Dark Drewyer came to me.”

The Hunter

The journals are saturated with references to Drouillard’s marksmanship and woodcraft. On July 11, 1804, Clark wrote that

“Drewyer killed 6 Deer to day.”

On July 31, 1804, near the Council Bluff:

“G. Drewyer Killed a verry fat Buck one Inch fat on the ribs.”

By the time the party reached the Great Plains, his ability to find game where others failed was already a matter of routine confidence. On September 2, 1804, Clark noted that

“G Drewyer R. Fields Howard & Newmon Killed four fat Elk on the Isld.”

This pattern intensified during the leanest stretches of the journey. At Fort Clatsop, where elk were the party’s principal subsistence, Drouillard was repeatedly sent out alone or with a small party. Lewis recorded on December 13, 1805 that

“Drewyer & Shannon returned from hunting havg. killed 18 Elk.”

When game grew scarce in early 1806, Lewis wrote on January 8, 1806:

“Our meat is begining to become scarse; sent Drewyer and Collins to hunt this morning.”

Even Drouillard’s failures were noteworthy — on February 9, 1806, Lewis recorded that he

“had killed nothing but one beaver”

— because his successes were the baseline expectation.

On the return journey, when the party desperately needed Indian canoes traded for, on March 17, 1806 Clark wrote:

“Drewyer returned late this evening from the Cath-lah-mahs with our Indian Canoe… and also a Canoe, which he had purchased from those people. for this canoe he gave Captn. Lewis’s uniform laced coat and nearly half a Carrot of to-bacco.”

On April 24, 1806, when the Wahhowpum tried to drive a hard bargain over the party’s now-useless canoes, Lewis recorded that

“Drewyer struck one of the canoes and split of a small peice with his tommahawk”

— a decisive act that promptly produced offers for the rest.

Sign-Language Interpreter

Drouillard’s mother was Shawnee, and he had grown up fluent in the Plains sign language used across an enormous swath of the continent. This skill made him essential at every diplomatic encounter where no spoken-language chain existed. When Lewis advanced ahead of the canoes in August 1805 to find the Shoshone, he took Drouillard with him. On August 1, 1805, Lewis wrote:

“I set out with 3 men in quest of the Snake Indians. the men I took were the two Interpreters Drewyer and Sharbono and Sergt. Gass.”

Ten days later, at the critical first contact with a mounted Shoshone, Lewis dispersed his men with sign-language instructions Drouillard had taught him: on August 11, 1805,

“I now sent Drewyer to keep near the creek to my right and Shields to my left, with orders to surch for the road.”

At Fort Clatsop and through the Columbia villages, Drouillard’s signs carried the burden of nearly all bargaining. On April 16, 1806, Clark sent him to the Skillute village to invite trade:

“Crossed the river and Sent Drewyer & Goodrich to the Skil lute village to envite the Indians to trade horses with us.”

The Great Chief, lame and unable to walk, returned with Drouillard.

Trusted Scout

When Lewis or Clark needed a man to be sent ahead, behind, or alone, Drouillard was almost always the choice. On February 12, 1805, at Fort Mandan, Lewis wrote:

“Drewyer arrived with the horses about the same time, the horses appeared much fatieged.”

On April 12, 1805, just above the Little Missouri:

“George Drewyer shot a Beaver this morning, which we found swiming in the river.”

On the upper Missouri, when Lewis killed his first grizzly with Drouillard at his side on May 5, 1805, Clark wrote:

“I went out with one man Geo. Drewyer & Killed the bear, which was verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill we Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him.”

When Lewis took the famous wrong turn up the Marias in early June 1805, it was Drouillard who scouted the rapid fork; on August 6, 1805, Lewis recorded that Drouillard had “informed him of the state of the two rivers” — that is, of the Beaverhead/Big Hole forks during a similar moment of decision.

During the bullboat-construction camp at the portage, Lewis on June 30, 1805 wrote:

“Drewyer and myself rendered a considerable quantity of tallow and cooked… Drewyer killed two [beaver] today.”

On August 21, 1805, awaiting the Shoshones’ arrival with horses, Lewis dispatched him again:

“Drewyer I sent with the horse into the cove for that purpose.”

The Pacific Winter and the Return

Through the long, wet Fort Clatsop winter, Drouillard’s hunting trips up the Netul and toward the prairies of Point Adams were the camp’s lifeline. Lewis recorded entries like that of January 28, 1806:

“Drewyer and Baptiest La Page set out this morning on a hunting excurtion.”

And February 4, 1806:

“Drewyer and La Page also returned to continue the chase in the same quarter.”

On March 2, 1806, Clark recorded one of the rare welcome arrivals of that season:

“Drewyer, Crusat & Wiser returned with a most acceptable Supply of fat Sturgen, fresh anchoves and a bag Containing about a bushel of Wappato.”

On the return, Drouillard hunted ahead through the Columbia plateau and the Nez Perce country, was sent on the horse-trading mission of April 16, 1806, and on May 16, 1806 his horse strayed and was returned by an Indian — one of the few times in the journals that Drouillard appears as the recipient rather than the agent of help. As the party prepared to recross the Bitterroots, Lewis on June 7, 1806 noted:

“Drewyer set out on a hunting excurtion up Collins’s Creek this evening.”

Character in the Captains’ Eyes

The journals do not give us a portrait of Drouillard’s personality in the way they do for Sacagawea or Charbonneau. He is rendered almost entirely through action: dispatched, returned, killed, brought, traded, scouted. Yet the cumulative effect is unmistakable. Lewis and Clark trusted him with the most consequential errands of the journey — first contact with the Shoshone, the trade for the canoe at the Cathlamet village, the scouting of forks, the procurement of meat in every famine. When the captains list a hunting party, his name almost always leads it.

A Note on the Record

This synthesis draws only on the sampled entries provided. Drouillard appears in 283 tagged entries in total, and many additional details of his service — including his role in the Marias River reconnaissance with Lewis in late July 1806 — are not represented in the sample above and are therefore not described here. What the record consistently shows, however, is a man whose name the captains reached for whenever the work required the highest reliability the Corps could muster.

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Three registers at a waiting camp

Clark writes the day twice. He opens not with the deserter hunt but with a longitude estimate — “We must be at this time about 99° 45′ 00″ West of Greenwich” — and a botanical list:

I Collected a grass much resembling wheet with a grain like Rye, much fuller of grain, one like Rye & one like Barley Grass Small, a Grass like Timothey except the Seed which is on branches from the main Stalk-

Only after the grasses does he turn to the human news. Late this evening “one of the party Sent after the deserters returned & joined us, he left the party 3 miles back”. The second draft names him: “at 6 oClock this evening Labieche one of the Party Sent to the Ottoes joined, and informed that the Party was behind with one of the Deserters M B. Reed and the 3 principal Chiefs of the Nations”. They had caught both deserters; “La Liberty they cought but he decived them and got away”. The chiefs were coming “to make a peace with the Mahars thro us”; because the Mahars were not at home, “this great object cannot be accomplished at this time”. Clark then “Set the Praries on fire to bring the Mahars & Soues if any were near, this being the usial Signal.” A cool evening; two beaver caught.

Ordway compresses the same camp into practical reportage. Wind from the “S. E.”; “we are yet waiting here for G. Drewyer & the 3 men who were with him”; “the men remained in camp reparing the arms & Cloathing”. He names the messenger “Labuche” and reports what the messenger said: “Drewyer & the Zottaus Chiefs was comming near with the Deserter”. He does not have the three miles back, the peace with the Mahars, the prairie fire, the grasses, or the beaver. His “Zottaus” is the Otoes under another spelling. Weather, labor, news — a stripped outline of Clark’s day without Clark’s diplomacy.

Floyd’s short line

Floyd’s entry for the seventeenth is the briefest of the three:

Continued Hear for ouer men thay did not Return Last night

He does not record Labiche’s evening arrival. His next dated line is “Satturday augt 18”: “ouer men Returnd and Brot with them the man and Brot with them the Grand Chief of the ottoes and 2 Loer ones and 6 youers of thare nattion”. Read against Clark and Ordway, Floyd is still waiting after they have already heard the advance report. Either he wrote before Labiche came in, or the messenger’s arrival was not the fact he chose to keep. The journals are not uniform witnesses. Rank, the hour of writing, and what each man thought worth a line all shape the page.

What the cross-reading shows

Two patterns are enough. Clark alone records the diplomatic substance: that the Oto chiefs are traveling with the party to negotiate peace with the Mahars, and that the prairie burning is a signal rather than an incidental fire. Ordway has the chiefs coming with the deserter and stops there. Floyd, on the 17th, has neither chiefs nor deserter — only the absence of “ouer men”. Second, the advance messenger is a Clark-and-Ordway fact. Clark’s “left the party 3 miles back” is the only cited measure of that separation.

Read singly, each entry is partial. Read together, they restore a camp that was botanical and diplomatic in Clark, laborious in Ordway, and, in Floyd’s one sentence, still only waiting.

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