 Picture courtesy of Jim Kuntz. EXPEDITION HIGHLIGHTS: From reentry into Missouri, til arrival in St. Louis
Sept 9, 1806 BALD ISLAND
-The expedition re-enters today's state of Missouri. Clark reports that "our party appears extreamly anzious to get on, and every day appears produce new anxieties in them to get to their Country and friends." Sept. 10, 1806 ABOVE BIG NEMAHA RIVER
-Missouri River travel is no easier during the return. Referring to moving sand and snags, Clark writes "Great caution and much attention is required to Stear Clear of all those dificuelties in this low State of the water." Sept. 12, 1806 ST. MICHAEL'S PRAIRIE
-For the sixth time in the last nine days, the expedition meets a trading party heading upriver. Robert McClellan, an old army friend of Lewis and Clark, provides news and wine and whiskey to celebrate. Sgt. Ordway writes "that the people in the united States...heard that we were all killed." Sept. 14, 1806 OLD KANSA VILLAGE
-In the afternoon, the expedition meets three large fur-trading boats. That evening, "our party received a dram and Sung Songs until 11 oClock at night in the greatest harmoney." Sept. 17, 1806 ABOVE GRAND RIVER
-The expedition meets another trading party, led by Lewis' friend John McClallen. The groups camp together and exchange news. Clark reports McClallen saying "we had been long since given out by the people of the U S Generaly and almost forgotton." Sept. 19, 1806 LAMINE TO OSAGE RIVERS
-Eager to reach St. Louis, "the men ply their oars & we decended with great velocity." They are satisfied with eating pawpaw fruits and do not stop to hunt. Sept. 20, 1806 LA CHARRETTE
-During the return to St. Louis, the villagers of La Charrette are amazed to see the party has survived two years and four months away.
Sept. 23, 1806 ST. LOUIS
-Reaching St. Louis about noon, the men fire their guns in salute. Clark writes "we were met by all the village and received a harty welcom from it's inhabitants." Lewis immediately writes a letter to President Thomas Jefferson with the first news of the journey.
----EPILOGUE----
Sgt. Patrick Gass was first to publish his journal, in 1807. After Lewis' death in 1809, Nicholas Biddle, using Lewis', Clark's and Sgt. John Ordway's journals, and with help from Clark and Pvt. George Shannon, published History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark in 1814. Clark's masterful map of the West was also published in 1814.
Meriwether Lewis became governor of Louisiana Territory. In 1809, at age 35, he died on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.
William Clark had a long post-expedition career in St. Louis: superintendent of Indian Affairs in Louisiana Territory, brigadier general of the militia, first governor of Missouri Territory, and again, superintendent of Indian Affairs. At age 68, He died in St. Louis in 1838.
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George Drouillard, son of a French-Canadian father and Shawnee mother, joined a fur-trading company. He died in 1810 near Three Forks, Mont., in a fight with the Blackfeet.
York may have been freed by Clark around 1815. After entering the wagon freight business in Kentucky and Tennessee, he died, possibly of cholera, some time before 1832.
Sacagawea was perhaps 16 or 17 when she joined the expedition at the Mandan villages in 1805. She probably died in 1812 at Fort Manuel, in present-day South Dakota. Clark adopted her son and daughter.
Four expedition members--William Clark, John Colter, George Shannon, Robert Frazier--are buried in Missouri.
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The Lewis and Clark Historic Landscape Project, funded by Office of Secretary of State. Riverside Dr., Frontier Park, St. Charles, Saint Charles County Missouri
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