Patrick Gass
Patrick Gass was an Irish-born American soldier who served as a sergeant in the Corps of Discovery after being elected by his fellow soldiers to replace the deceased Sergeant Charles Floyd. An experienced carpenter, Gass supervised the construction of Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop, the expedition's two winter quarters. His journal, published in 1807, was the first published account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, appearing seven years before the official Biddle edition. Gass was the last surviving member of the expedition, dying in 1870 at the remarkable age of 99.
Portrait: Centennial History of Oregon, Public Domain
Related Locations
Note: the longest gap between tagged appearances is about 5 months (Nov 3, 1804 → Apr 8, 1805). Patrick Gass may have been present in the corps during that span but is not named in the journals.
Journal Entries (320)
Wildlife (1)
Documents (1)
Cross-Narrator Analyses
AI-assisted scholarly analyses that cite or discuss Patrick Gass — showing 24 of the most recent matches.
A Heavy Stern and a Rainy Morning: The Barge in Trouble Below St. Charles
On the second day out from River Dubois, the captains and the enlisted journalists record the same nine-mile push in strikingly different…
A Kickapoo Promise Kept at the Mouth of a Small Creek
On the second full day above St. Charles, the expedition passes Bonhomme Creek, encamps under cliffs, and receives venison from Kickapoo hunters…
The Tavern Cave and a Captain’s Near-Fall: Four Voices on a Missouri Landmark
On May 23, 1804, four expedition narrators record a stop at the Tavern Cave below the Osage Womans River. Their accounts diverge…
The Retrograde Bend: Four Voices on a Near-Disaster
When the keelboat's tow rope snapped in the Missouri's violent current, four expedition journalists recorded the same crisis in radically different registers…
The Last Settlement: Four Voices at the Edge of the Known World
On May 25, 1804, four expedition journalists recorded the Corps of Discovery's arrival at a small French village marking the westernmost outpost…
Detachment Orders Amid the Thunder
While four narrators record only rain, a creek, and a campsite, Lewis devotes the day to a sweeping reorganization of the Corps…
Mouth of the Gasconade: Five Voices, One Camp
On a Sunday in May 1804, the expedition reached the Gasconade River and met traders descending from three Indian nations. Four sergeants…
A Wet Pirogue, a Measured River, and a Cave That Wasn’t There
At the mouth of the Gasconade, five narrators record the same storm and the same dead deer — but Whitehouse's entry drifts…
A Missing Hunter and the Echo of Guns: Four Voices from Deer Creek
On a rain-soaked Tuesday above the Gasconade, four expedition journalists record the same brief march and the same lost hunter — but…
Rain, Hail, and a Lost Hunter: Four Voices on a Soggy Missouri Day
Four expedition journals record the same rain-soaked passage past Monbrun's Tavern, but only Ordway and Clark identify the mysterious gunfire heard the…
A Wind-Bound Day and a Letter Burned on the Arkansas
Five narrators record the same wind-bound camp near the Gasconade, but only Clark preserves the political news riding downriver in the trader's…
Arrival at the Osage: Five Pens at the Confluence
On June 1, 1804, the Corps reached the mouth of the Osage River. Five narrators record the same arrival, but each preserves…
Measuring the Confluence: A Day of Instruments and Returning Hunters
At the mouth of the Osage, Clark turns surveyor while his companions log the same river widths in shrinking detail. Two lost…
A Sore Throat, an Obscured Sun, and Signs of War Parties
On a Sunday split between fair morning and clouded afternoon near the Osage, five narrators record the same five-mile push to Murrow…
The Broken Mast and the Singing Bird
Five narrators record June 4, 1804 — a day defined by a snapped mast, a nighttime bird's song, and a rumored lead…
The Painted Devil and the Burned Beaver: Two Frenchmen on the Missouri
A chance midday encounter with two French trappers descending from the Kansas River yields the expedition's first secondhand intelligence on the plains…
Salt Springs, Split Rock, and a Boat Nearly Lost
Five narrators describe the same stretch of Missouri shoreline, but each preserves a different fragment: Clark's salinity arithmetic, Gass's near-disaster at the…
The Mine River and a Cache of Buried Skins
On June 8, 1804, the expedition reached the mouth of the Mine River. Five narrators record the same day with strikingly different…
A Snag, a Swing, and the Measure of a Crew
On a rainy Saturday near the Prairie of Arrows, the keelboat's stern caught a submerged log and swung broadside into drifting timber.…
The Two Charitons and an Osage Plum: Five Hands at the Mouth
At the mouths of the Two Charitons, five narrators converge on a single geographic fact and diverge on everything else — botany,…
An Old Frenchman on the Down-River Current
On June 12, 1804, the expedition met a flotilla of pirogues descending from the Sioux country and recruited Pierre Dorion as interpreter.…
At the Mouth of the Grand: Three Views of a Vanished Village
On June 13, 1804, three expedition journalists reached the mouth of the Grand River and recorded the same encampment in strikingly different…
The Place of Snakes and a Boat Nearly Lost
Five narrators record a near-disaster on a moving sand bar below Snake Creek, an encounter with returning French traders from the Pawnee,…
The Sawyer, the Sands, and the Ghost Villages of the Little Osage
On a brutally swift stretch of the Missouri, the boat strikes a sawyer and nearly founders in rolling quicksand. Five narrators converge…
From Heacock's Writings
4 mirrored articles by Robert Heacock that mention Patrick Gass.
