Historical Figure

Joseph Field

Joseph Field served alongside his brother Reubin as a private in the Corps of Discovery. A skilled woodsman and hunter from Kentucky, Joseph was part of Lewis's small party during the tense encounter with Blackfeet warriors on the Marias River in July 1806. He was frequently chosen for scouting missions and hunting parties, reflecting Lewis and Clark's trust in his frontier abilities. Joseph died just a year after the expedition's return, in 1807.

0 treaties 29 total items 29 mapped locations

Related Locations

Pin color = Planning (1801–1804) Westward (1804–1805) Fort Clatsop (1805–1806) Return (1806) Post (1806–1812)
Master expedition route

Note: the longest gap between tagged appearances is about 15 months (Aug 17, 1804 → Nov 19, 1805). Joseph Field may have been present in the corps during that span but is not named in the journals.

Journal Entries (27)

Cross-Narrator Analyses

Analyses that cite or discuss Joseph Field — showing 24 of the most recent matches.

May 30, 1806

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…

June 29, 1806

Bidding Adieu to the Snow: Four Voices at Lolo Hot Springs

The descent from the Lolo Trail on June 29, 1806 marked the end of one of the expedition's most feared passages. All…

July 9, 1806

Cold Rain on the Divided Plains: Two Camps, One Expedition

By July 9, 1806, the Corps of Discovery had divided into multiple parties to explore the country between the Continental Divide and…

May 28, 1806

Cows Roots, Sweat Lodges, and a Squawling Bird: Four Voices at Camp Chopunnish

The entries of May 28, 1806, offer a striking case study in how four members of the Corps of Discovery could share…

February 26, 1806

Empty Stores and the Mystery of the Sewelel

A Garrison on Short RationsThe entries from Fort Clatsop on this Wednesday converge on a single anxiety: food. Clark and Lewis open…

December 26, 1805

Fleas, Wet Powder, and a Smoky Christmas Aftermath at Fort Clatsop

The day after Christmas at the newly occupied Fort Clatsop produced three strikingly different journal entries. Patrick Gass treats the date as…

February 28, 1806

Four Pens at Fort Clatsop: A Sturgeon Sale, Five Elk, and a White-Tailed Hare

The journal entries for February 28, 1806 offer an unusually clean specimen for cross-narrator comparison. All four diarists — Lewis, Clark, Gass,…

March 18, 1806

Four Pens at Fort Clatsop: Departure Lists, Stolen Canoes, and a Sick Hunter

The journals for March 18, 1806 (mistakenly headed March 17 by Clark) capture Fort Clatsop in the final, fretful days before the…

June 3, 1806

Four Pens at Long Camp: Snowmelt, Salmon, and a Strategic Departure

The journals of June 3, 1806, offer an unusually clear demonstration of how the four working diarists at Camp Chopunnish—Meriwether Lewis, William…

April 17, 1806

Four Pens at the Long Narrows: A Day of Failed Bargains and Quiet Observation

The journal entries of April 17, 1806, capture the Lewis and Clark expedition at a moment of strategic difficulty along the Columbia…

February 1, 1806

Hunters on the Netul, Canoes on the Page: Parallel Labors at Fort Clatsop

The first day of February 1806 at Fort Clatsop produced one of the clearest examples in the expedition record of how dramatically…

January 31, 1806

Ice on the River, a Bird in the Hand: Four Voices at Fort Clatsop

The entries for January 31, 1806, offer an unusually clean experiment in cross-narrator comparison. All four diarists — Patrick Gass, John Ordway,…

March 13, 1806

Moccasins, Salmon, and a Lost Pirogue: Four Voices at Fort Clatsop

The journal entries for March 13, 1806 offer an unusually clear window into how the Corps of Discovery distributed its observational labor…

August 28, 1806

Return to Pleasant Camp: Specimen Hunting and the Bounty of Plums

The expedition's return down the Missouri brought the Corps of Discovery, on August 28, 1806, to a familiar bend of the river…

February 17, 1806

Salt, Elk, and the Measure of a Condor: Four Pens at Fort Clatsop

February 17, 1806 produced four overlapping accounts of activity at Fort Clatsop, and the convergences and divergences among them illuminate the working…

December 27, 1805

Spoiled Elk, Sweet Roots, and a December Mosquito at Fort Clatsop

The 27th of December 1805 found the Corps of Discovery hunkered down at the partially completed Fort Clatsop, with rain falling much…

November 11, 1805

Stranded Among Drift Logs: Two Voices on a Storm-Bound Camp

By 11 November 1805 the Corps of Discovery had spent four days battered against a narrow shelf on the north bank of…

April 4, 1806

The Bear’s Den and the Hidden River: Four Voices at Quicksand River

The entries for April 4, 1806, written while the Corps of Discovery was encamped near the mouth of the Quicksand (Sandy) River…

December 2, 1805

The First Elk West of the Rockies: Three Versions of a Welcome Kill

The journal entries from December 2, 1805, capture a single event — Joseph Fields walking into camp with elk marrow bones —…

July 23, 1806

Three Camps, One Day: Divergent Trails on the Marias and Yellowstone

By late July 1806 the Corps of Discovery was scattered across hundreds of miles of plains and mountain country. The journal entries…

August 9, 1806

Two Camps, Two Registers: Skins, Goose Berries, and a Missing Pair

The August 9, 1806 entries capture the Corps of Discovery still bisected, with Captain Lewis encamped upriver mending clothes and waiting, and…

July 12, 1806

Two Rivers, Two Crises: The Split Expedition on July 12, 1806

By July 12, 1806, the Corps of Discovery had split into detachments executing Captain Lewis's ambitious plan to explore multiple river systems…

November 19, 1805

Two Scales of Witness on the Columbia Shore

The journals of November 19, 1805 capture the Corps of Discovery split between two distinct fields of observation along the south shore…

Narrator: Charles Floyd

Charles Floyd: The Sergeant’s Plain Ledger

VoiceCharles Floyd writes like a man keeping a ship's log who has been told, almost as an afterthought, that he is also…

From the Heacock Memorial Archive

3 lewis-clark.org articles that mention Joseph Field, preserved here for Robert Heacock’s photography. The articles were written by that site’s contributing authors.

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