John Ordway
Sergeant John Ordway was one of the three sergeants who led squads within the Corps of Discovery and the only enlisted man to keep a journal for the entire duration of the expedition. His detailed daily entries provide an invaluable continuous record complementing the journals of Lewis and Clark. Ordway served as the de facto first sergeant, managing supplies, maintaining order, and commanding the camp when both Lewis and Clark were absent. After the expedition, he sold his journal to Lewis and Clark and settled in Missouri.
Related Locations
Note: the longest gap between tagged appearances is about 5 months (Oct 27, 1804 → Apr 8, 1805). John Ordway may have been present in the corps during that span but is not named in the journals.
Journal Entries (599)
Documents (1)
Cross-Narrator Analyses
Analyses that cite or discuss John Ordway — showing 24 of the most recent matches.
A Beaver, a Bear, and a Bleeding Newfoundland: Three Sergeants on the Missouri
The journal entries for May 19, 1805, offer a textbook case of how the enlisted journalists of the Corps of Discovery cross-pollinated…
A Belt of Blue Beads for a Sea-Otter Robe
The entries for November 21, 1805, find the Corps wind-bound on the south shore of the Columbia estuary, unable to begin the…
A Bighorn Skin and a Broken Cord: Four Views of the Cascades Portage
The entries of April 10, 1806, find the Corps of Discovery laboring up the rapids below the Upper Cascades of the Columbia,…
A Birth at Fort Mandan, A Hunt on the Prairie: Divergent Lenses on February 11, 1805
February 11, 1805, at Fort Mandan. Two published journals in this corpus record the day: Meriwether Lewis and John Ordway. Patrick Gass…
A Boat That Rocked Like Medicine: Four Accounts of a Tense Teton Farewell
The entries for September 30, 1804 capture a single sequence of events — a lone Indian overtaking the boat, a riverside encounter…
A Boy’s Toes and a Hunter’s Pleurisy: Three Voices at Fort Mandan
The journal entries for January 31, 1805 offer an unusually clear demonstration of how rank, role, and writerly purpose shaped what each…
A British Musket on the Columbia: Three Views of a Wind-Bound Day
The expedition's progress on October 28, 1805, was halted within a few miles of starting. After loading canoes at sunrise and proceeding…
A Broken Mast and a Country Skipping with Deer
One River, Five MeasurementsThe day's central geographic event — passing the mouth of the Petite Platte (Little Shoal River) about ten miles…
A Broken Rudder, a Fortified Lodge, and Buffalo That Will Not Move
The Rudder and the Late StartEvery narrator opens with the same delay. The red pirogue's rudder irons, broken landing the previous evening,…
A Broken Voyage, a White Bear Skin, and a Missing Sergeant: Four Voices at Camp Chopunnish
The journal entries dated June 1, 1806 offer an unusual structural puzzle for readers of the expedition record. Three of the four…
A Cache, a Departure, and Two Patients on the Marias
The June 11 entries divide cleanly along a geographic seam. Lewis is gone — he set out at 8 A.M. with Drouillard,…
A Call to Arms at Fort Mandan: Three Accounts of the Sioux Raid Response
On 30 November 1804, the newly established garrison at Fort Mandan faced its first diplomatic-military test. A Mandan messenger crossed the half-frozen…
A Camp Divides: Lewis’s Cache and Clark’s Reconnaissance
August 20, 1805 is the first full day in which the captains' journals describe geographically separated activities, and the enlisted-men narrators line…
A Canoe Lost, a Chief Recovering: Four Voices from Camp Chopunnish
The journal entries for May 30, 1806, written from Camp Chopunnish on the Clearwater River, offer an unusually clean opportunity to compare…
A Canoe on the Rocks: Three Accounts of an October Wreck on the Snake
The wreck of a stern canoe in a Snake River rapid below the Palouse confluence produced one of the more vivid clusters…
A Canoe Sunk on the Rapid: Three Voices on the Wreck of October 8th
The wreck of Sergeant Patrick Gass's canoe in a rapid below the Clearwater encampment of October 8, 1805, is one of the…
A Captured Vulture and a Borrowed Page: Parallel Journals at Fort Clatsop
The journals of February 16, 1806 offer an unusually clean specimen of the collaborative writing practices that governed Fort Clatsop's winter quarters.…
A Carrot of Tobacco and a Drawn Sword: Four Accounts of the Teton Standoff
September 28, 1804, below the Teton villages near present Pierre. The keelboat's anchor was lost in the sand the night before. When…
A Cheyenne Pipe at Fort Mandan: Three Registers of a Diplomatic Visit
The visit of four Cheyenne ("Shar-ha" / "Chien" / "Shian") emissaries to Fort Mandan, accompanying chiefs of the lower Mandan village, is…
A Coal Bank, a Creek of Many Names, and a Missing Flanking Party
The journals for June 25, 1804 cover a short stretch of the Missouri above Arrow Rock, with the party detained by fog…
A Cold Hunt Down River: Three Accounts of Clark’s Buffalo Search
The hunting expedition Captain William Clark led from Fort Mandan on December 14, 1804 produced three surviving accounts—one from Clark himself and…
A Colt Falls Prey to Our Appetites: Three Voices on Bitterroot Hunger
The September 17, 1805 entries from Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and William Clark converge on a single grim fact: the Corps of…
A Conic Mound of Stones: Four Voices on the Bitterroot Summit
The journals of June 27, 1806 offer an unusually clean specimen of how the Lewis and Clark expedition's four active diarists handled…
A Council Postponed: Wind, Wonder, and the Bull-Boats of the Arikara
The 9th of October 1804 found the Corps of Discovery encamped near the Arikara villages on the Missouri, prevented by weather from…
From the Heacock Memorial Archive
12 lewis-clark.org articles that mention John Ordway, preserved here for Robert Heacock’s photography. The articles were written by that site’s contributing authors.
John Newman
Private
Alcohol Rations
Ardent spirits on the expedition
A Solitary Hero
Excerpt from River of Promise
November 7, 1805
Ocean in view?
April 7, 1806
Regulating the firearms
December 30, 1805
Fair morning
November 3, 1805
The "Quick Sand" River
April 3, 1806
Mapping the Willamette River
October 29, 1805
Friendly villages
April 28, 1806
Yelleppit brings a horse
March 26, 1806
At Fanny's Bottom
May 16, 1804
St. Charles arrival
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