Lewis and Clark in Missouri MO60
---EXPEDITION FACTS and FIGURES---

Instructions from President Jefferson --explore Missouri River to headwaters --find most direct route to Pacific Ocean --assert United States ownership of Louisiana Territory --negotiate with Indian nations --record plants, animals, soils, weather, minerals

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the "Corps of Discovery" --three sergeants 24 privates, including Pierre Cruzatte and Francois Labiche, navigators --George Drouillard, interpreter and hunter --York, Clark's slave --(+eight French boatmen, one corporal, four privates, as far as Mandan villages) --from Mandan villages on: Toussaint Charbonneau, interpreter, his wife, Sacagawea, and their son, Jean Baptiste

Expedition in Missouri --Nov.16-Dec.12, 1803, 210 miles on Mississippi River (winter at mouth of Wood River) --May 14-July 18, 1804, 604 miles on Missouri River --return: Sept.9,-Sept.23, 1806, on Missouri River 1804: Wood River to Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota 1805: Mandan villages to Fort Clatsop, Oregon Country 1806: return: Fort Clatsop to St. Louis.

Missouri was a beginning and end for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Planned by President Thomas Jefferson and carried out by the two captains and a large crew, the expedition is a keystone American event. When the United States took ownership of the Louisiana Territory -during a ceremony in St. Louis in March 1804 probably attended by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark- the country doubled in size, and expansion to the Pacific Ocean seemed possible. Two months later, the "Corps of Discovery" traveled up the Missouri River toward the Pacific and, they hoped, a new American era in trade, diplomacy and settlement.

"Corps of Volunteers on an Expedition of North Western Discovery
After leaving winter camp at Wood River, on the east side of the Mississippi River directly opposite the mouth of the Missouri River, the crew made a final recruiting stop in St. Charles in May 1804. Most of the men were army sergeants and privates, but the expedition - with 45 members beginning the journey - also included Clark's slave York, a French-Shawnee interpreter, and French-Canadian, French-Omaha and French-Missouri Indian boatmen. Thanks to seven who kept journals, we can imagine the journey vividly. On the way west, the expedition spent 66 days in what is now Missouri. During the return to St. Louis in 1806, the same 600 miles took just two weeks.

The River Master
The Missouri River and its dangers dominated the early trip in spring and summer 1804. The 55-foot keelboat, suitable for the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, turned out to be a poor design for the Missouri. The swift main channel required the keelboat and two smaller pirogues to travel near the shore, where snags, moving sandbars, rafts of driftwood and collapsing banks often blocked the way. Often the crew was forced to tow the keelboat from the riverbank. They repaired broken masts and towropes, were exhausted by exertion and heat, blasted by sand and tormented by mosquitoes.
The way upriver was more than a challenge: "it can hardly be imagined the fataigue that we underwent," wrote Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse. It was disaster waiting to happen but always avoided. In the struggle, the crew was drawned together with a singular purpose to succeed. On June 14 above the Grand River, Clark's journal tells a story of the keelboat in peril, but it tells much more about the expedition's collective willpower: "we saved her by Some exertions of our party (ever ready to inconture [encounter] any fatigue for the premotion of the enterprise.)"

What They Saw
Every day in Missouri brought something of note. Beyond final outposts at Boone's Settlement and La Charrette, the expedition still met fur traders on the well-traveled Missouri River. Though the captains established daily routines, life on the river was hardly dull. Lewis almost tumbled off a cliff; Pvt. Whitehouse found a remarkable cave; and two hunters were gone a week and returned "much worsted." The crew saw signs of Indian war parties and Indian pictographs on bluffs.
Those who kept journals wrote of the beautiful summer landscape along the river, of forests, bluffs and prairies, caves, creeks and springs. As the expedition passed from "well timber'd" eastern Missouri to the "Beautiful prarie" of western Missouri, the scenery inspired descriptions that burst from the journal pages. Sgt. Charles Floyd, usually confining himself to the facts of the trip, wrote on June 4, of "a Butifull a peas of Land as ever I saw." On the western prairies, the normally businesslike Clark wrote that "nature appears to have exerted herself to butify the Senery by the variety of flours Delicately and highly flavered raised above the Grass."

The Meaning of Return
When the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis, it ended the dream of a Northwest Passage. The expedition reached the Pacific, but only after a hard crossing over the Rocky Mountains. During the journey, Lewis and Clark met nearly 50 Indian nations. Their scientific achievements were vast: they returned with detailed records of 300 animals and plants never described before, but unfortunately many of their findings were not published for almost a hundred years. Though a vanguard of American expansion, the expedition was far from the first into the west. The French and British had traded in and mapped portions of the Missouri River country during the previous century. Lewis and Clark were the first Euro-American explorers to ascend the length of the Missouri River from the mouth to its source. They also explored a large portion of the Columbia River and helped establish a U.S. claim to the Pacific coast. There are few if any American explorations more important or epic, and few better travel stories.

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Lewis and Clark - Gasconade MO25

"May 28th, Munday, 1804
...I measured the river found the Gasconnade to be 157 yds. wide and 19 foot Deep the Course of this R. is S 29° W...onloaded the large Peroque on board of which was 8 french hands found many things wet by their cearlessness, put all the articles which was wet out to Dry..." William Clark

The maps of William Clark tell the story of a river unbounded. From Clark's simple drawings with quill and ink, comes the map here. [ed. shown across top of interpretive sign] River channels were drawn according to Clark's instructions and historic notes were linked with modern photographs and satellite images to contrast the two Missouri River paths.

In the early 1800s, maps of central North America were nearly blank. Lewis and Clark were equipped with the best instruments of their time to measure the landscape. Clark recorded sandbars, islands, cliffs, creeks and other landmarks, then sketched out crude maps. After Clark returned, he combined his maps with notes from fellow travelers to create a large map of the United States.

Mapmakers still marvel at the accuracy of Clark's maps and the river they reveal. The maps are invaluable in comparing the historical river with the river of today. The Missouri River is ever changing through floods and waterway movements and remains a challenge to measure and map.

William Clark read the sextant to measure latitude (see illustration). He took sightings at given times each day using a timepiece for precision and a telescope for celestial observations. Clark's journal maps have amazing accuracy to illustrate the Missouri River's changing channels.

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Jamestown Road W38
The ancient road that linked Jamestown, the original colonial capital, with Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg) followed a meandering course. It departed from Jamestown Island and then turned northeast, crossing Powhatan and Mill Creeks. As it approached Middle Plantation, it traversed a branch of College Creek that by the mid-17th century was dammed to form Rich Neck plantation’s millpond, today’s Lake Matoaka. Improvements to Jamestown Road, completed in time for the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, constituted the first project completed with the assistance of the State Highway Commission, formed in 1906.

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Saint Louis County MO20

The county was first visited by white colonists when missionary priests, Illinois French, and Kaskaskia and Tamaroa Indians settled the temporary village of Des Peres, 1700-03. The village site, laid out 18 years after La Salle claimed the territory for France, is now within St. Louis city limits.

The county's first permanent settlement was St. Louis, founded by Pierre Laclede, 1764. Though France had ceded the region to Spain, 1762, the settlements were made French, and other early villages were Creve Coeur, Carondelet, and Florissant, and early Catholic educational center. In the late 1700's, Americans began to settle farms on the creeks and rivers. On Cold Water Creek, a Methodist Church was formed, 1806, and on Fee Fee Creek a Baptist, 1807.

St. Louis and its surrounding settlements formed one of 5 Spanish districts before the American period began, 1804, and one of first 5 counties of Missouri Territory, organized, 1812. St. Louis city and county separated, 1876, and Clayton was laid out as the new county seat, 1878. The name is for Ralph Clayton, who gave 100 acres of land.

St. Louis County developed as a suburban and recreational area and a feature of its growth is the incorporated towns founded outside the city limits of St. Louis.

Events of early county history include the establishment of Ft. Prince Charles at the mouth of the Missouri by the Spanish, 1767, and the building of Ft. Bellefontaine a few miles from the river's mouth by the U.S., 1805. Indian trading post and military cantonment, Bellefontaine was one of the first American forts west of the Mississippi. Zebulon M. Pike left from Bellefontaine on his great expedition to the Southwest, 1806.

Points of interest are Jefferson Barracks, dating from 1826; National Cemetery; log cabin home of Ulysses S. and Julia Dent Grant; Rockwoods Reservation; Babler State Park; Concordia Historical Institute Museum; Museum of Transport; and Lambert-St. Louis Airport. In the county are the major part of Washington University; Eden (Reformed Evangelical) Seminary; Concordia (Lutheran) Seminary; Catholic seminaries of Kenrick, St. Stanislaus, and Holy Family, and colleges of Fontbonne, Chaminade, and Webster.

[Photo #1: Marker- Photo#2: In 1854, Ulysses S.Grant built this log cabin on 80 acres acquired from the Dents when he married their daughter. The family lived in this home for 5 years.]

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Lewis and Clark - Gore MO18

"The Sergt at the center will command the guard, manage the sails, see that the men at the oars do their duty; that they come on board at a proper season in the morning, and that the boat gets under way in due time; he will keep a good lookout for the mouths of all rivers, creeks, Islands and other remarkable places and shall immediately report the same to the commanding officers..."
Detachment Orders, Lewis and Clark, May 26, 1804

On May 26, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped on an island just downstream from Loutre Island. Typical of the Missouri River's ever-changing channels, neither island exists today, and the site of the island campsite is now on the opposite shore nearly across from this location. The party was delayed an hour that morning because of heavy rain, but fortunately the same weather front brought a strong east wind. The sail of the keelboat was hoisted and the boat made good time, 18 miles, equaling the longest day on the Missouri River to that date. The Corps of Discovery averaged 11.78 miles a day going up the river while in the present-day state of Missouri, which matched the most optimistic estimate of William Clark for daily progress up the Missouri.

The expedition was beginning to establish a routine of hunting for game, the mainstay of the men's diet. Captains Meriwether Lewis and Clark had acquired two horses prior to their departure from St. Charles to help the day's hunters carry meat along shore to the evening camp. On May 26, George Drouillard, a Canadian-Shawnee hired as an interpreter and hunter, went out with John Shields. The Captains instructed them to travel a day and hunt the next, though it turned out that Drouillard and Shields didn't rejoin the rest of the party again until June 2. Another man hunted that day, and Clark mentioned in his journal a "great Deal of Deer Sign on the Bank."

For their main source of meat on the lower Missouri River, the expedition hunted the white-tailed deer, shown on the marker in a John James Audubon engraving. About 115 deer were taken in Missouri on the upstream voyage.

Over the following days and months, various parties of hunters paralleled the course of the boats while hunting for food. Hunters were sometimes forced to spend the night in rough weather with only the barest shelter. Men on the boats, meanwhile, rowed, poled, or pulled their vessels by rope, an exhausting labor. The Captains had purposely chosen a crew of "good hunters, stout, healthy, unmarried, accustomed to the woods and capable of bearing bodily fatigue to a considerable degree," as Lewis wrote to Clark in an 1803 letter.

DETACHMENT ORDERS

Captains Lewis and Clark signed detachment orders on May 26, detailing the organization and duties of all the men on the expedition. The three Sergeants, Charles Floyd, John Ordway and Nathaniel Pryor, stationed on the keelboat, were put in charge of the three eight-man messes. The men in these messes and their Sergeants formed the elite Corps of Discovery that was destined to journey to the Pacific and back. The crew of the two pirogues would pilot the keelboat back to St. Louis the following spring, bringing with them the first reports and scientific specimens of the expedition to be delivered to President Thomas Jefferson.

The Sergeants rotated day to day from the keelboat's helm to center to bow, and took responsibility for many important tasks such steering, checking baggage, managing the sails, calling rests, reporting landmarks, watching out for river hazards, other boats and Indians, and overseeing guard duties at camp. The Captains relieved the Sergeants from daily camp duties such as cooking and pitching tents, and instructed them to keep daily journals. The French engages, or boatmen, were also required to do regular guard duty along with the privates. George Drouillard and the heads of the two pirogues were exempt from guard duty because of their many other responsibilities.

Duties of the Sergeants on Keelboats.

SGT. AT THE HELM: Steer Boat; See that baggage arranged and stowed; Attend to compass.

SGT. AT THE CENTER: Command guard; Manage sails; Supervise oarsmen; See that boat departs on time; Watch for streams, islands; Issue "spiritious liquor"; Regulate halts; Post guards on land.

SGT. AT THE BOW: Look out for all danger, enemy or obstruction; Communicate same to Sgt. at Center; Report all other craft, hunting camps, Indians; Assist bowman in poling.

Detachment One (Keelboat)

MESS 1 Sgt. Charles Floyd Privates Hugh McNeal Patric Gass Rueben Fields John B. Thompson John Newman Richard Windsor Francis Rivet Joseph Fields

MESS 2 Sgt. John Ordway Privates William Bratton John Colter Moses B. Reed Alexander Willard William Werner Silas Goodrich John Potts Hugh Hall

MESS 3 Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor Privates George Gibson George Shannon John Shields John Collins Joseph Whitehouse Peter Wiser Pierre Cruzatte Francois Labiche

Detachment Two (Pirogues)

MESS 1 Red Pirogue Patroon Baptiste Deschamps Engages Etienne Malboeuf Paul Primeau Charles Herbert Peter Pinaut Peter Roi Joseph Collin Jean Baptist LaJeunesse

MESS 2 White Pirogue Corpl. Richard Washington Privates Robert Frazer John Boley John Dame Ebineser Tuttle Isaac White

[Photo #1: marker. Photo #2: Gravel bars in distance is approximate location of island campsite.]

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Highway Marking WI46
In the old days when both automobiles and roads were few in number, it was easy for those who had cars to get far enough away from home to get lost. While there were some "trails" such as the Cannon Ball Trail and the Yellowstone Trail (marked by daubs of yellow paint on any convenient object along the roadside) the long distance traveler was usually guided by such natural features as hills, boulders, creeks and rivers, or by man-made landmarks (bridges, barns, schoolhouses, etc.). In 1917 the Wisconsin Highway Commission engineers recommended and inaugurated, with the Legislature's authorization, the first statewide system of identifying highways by number. This highway was designated State Trunk Highway 19 (later U.S. 16) and was the first to be marked and signed by numerals. The now familiar number system was later adopted by all other states and many foreign countries.

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Cochranetown - Corakko Talofv FL71

(This is Florida's first bi-lingual marker) Apalachicola Creek Indians permanently settled Calhoun County in 1815; wars forced them out of Alabama. A new Tribal Town was built by Chief Tuskie Hajo Cochrane between Old River and Noble Lake. Cochrane is an anglicized version of his Creek name Corakko pronounced "Cho'thlakko" which means Horse. The 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek recognized Cochranetown with its 100 families as part of the Blunt-Tuskie Hajo Reservation now called Blountstown. Meske 1815 mahen, Estecate Ocesvlke Vpvlvcekola fullvt. Tepokv empefatkvtet eyicet tacko Kvlhun vpoketv hatyakvtes. Mimvm, Tvske Hacoketatet talofv empvtakvn hayvtes. Tvske Haco Corakko "Cochrane" Wacenv ehocefkvt toyvtes. 1823 opunvkv-cokv (Motle Temfvtcetv) oc-ofvn, Corakko Talofv "Cochranetown", Plvnt-Tvske Haco ekvntacko hahoyvtes. Mucv nettv, Plvnt-en-Talofv tos. The 1832 Treaty of Payne's Landing compelled local Creeks to emigrate to Texas with Chief John Blunt. Tuskie Hajo Cochrane's daughter, Polly Parrot, refused to go. Her clan fled northward to a Calhoun County wilderness called Boska Bokga, "the last fasting place." The Bokga's people became known as the Boggs family. Many Calhoun County citizens descend from Polly's clan. 1832 opunvkv-cokv (Lucuwv Temfvtcetv) oc-ofvn, Teksvke min vpeyvnonstkes kihocen. Vyepofvn Tvske Haco echuste vyetvn eyacekot. Polly em-estvlken vtelohyet kvn posketv pokkon sohletkvtes. Mucv, Kvlhun Tacko ofvn, Polly enrohonvpvlke fulle emunks. In 1986, Florida Tribe of Eastern Creek Indians whose members include the Boggs clan was recognized by the State. Today, they still maintain their ancient traditions. Their unbroken line of titled chiefs is Tuskie Hajo Cochrane-1832; Polly Parrot, regent matriarch 1833-1898; Tuskie Hajo John James William Joseph Boggs-1900; Tuskie Hajo James Daniel Boggs-1920; Alice McClellan Boggs, regent matriarch 1933-1961; Tuskie Mahaya Hajo Dr. Andrew Boggs Ramsey-1962, The Tuskie Hajo (Zealous Warriors) all descend from Polly. Cochranetown is 3 miles south of here, east of SR 69. Ohrolope 1986, Kvnfvske, Vhakv-hayvlke em-nakaftetv oc-ofvn Ocesvlket Florida Tribe kerkueckv emhoyet omvtes. Hiyomat, Kvlhun Tacko estecate Mvskokvlket fulle emunks. Emmekkvlket Tvske Haco Corakko 1832, Polly 1833-1898, Tvske Haco Can Cems Welev Cose Pokkvs 1900, Tvske Haco Cems Tvnel Pokkvs 1920, Vles Mvklelan Pokkvs 1933-1961, Tvske Mvhayv Haco Vntolv Pokkvs Lvmse 1962, Hocefkvlket omvts. Pommekkvlke Pollyketate Rohonvpvlket omes, Mytto!

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Coeburn X10
The town stands on the site of one of Christopher Gist's camps when he was returning from his exploration of the Ohio Valley about 1750. Big Tom and Little Tom creeks are named for him and his son. The name of the town comes from W. W. Coe, chief engineer of the N. & w. Railroad, and Judge W. E. Bums of Lebanon. Coeburn was incorporated in 1894.

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Lewistown MT8

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Ashby - Wilson Creek Community TX162
Ashby-Wilson Creek Community

William Erastus Moore, a New Jersey native, settled in Indianola in the 1850s. After serving with Terry's Texas Rangers in the Civil War, he returned to settle on land northeast of Blessing and named the surrounding agricultural community in honor of Col. Henry M. Ashby, a Tennessee field commander with whom he had served during the war.

Moore operated a ranch in the community, as well as a general store that housed the post office where he served as postmaster from 1890 until 1902. He also freighted supplies by boat at a time when the Colorado raft (logjam) made area creeks, such as Wilson Creek, more navigable. An active member of the community, Moore donated land for the Ashby Methodist Church and the Ashby Cemetery.

Concurrent to Ashby's development, a group of freed slaves established the nearby Wilson Creek Community. Residents there organized the Christ Chief St. Mary's Baptist Church and built a sanctuary where, as with the Methodist and Baptist churches in Ashby, local children also attended school.

The combined Ashby-Wilson Creek Community showed economic promise in the early 20th century, with cotton gins, stores and warehouses, but the population gradually declined. When the raft was cleared and the Colorado River became navigable, Wilson Creek was no longer viable. Plans for a railroad connecting Wilson creek to the Colorado were abandoned. The resulting economic downturn, coupled with wartime population shifts to other towns in the 1940s, led to the now sparse habitation of the area. Still, descendants of early residents remain, as do the memories of the many men and women who made their lives here.

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