Pryor’s Mission

Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor had been told of his mission sometime earlier, perhaps back at Travelers’ Rest. But it was on 23 July 1806, the day before Clark’s contingent shoved off from their Canoe Camp on the north bank of the Yellowstone near today’s Park City, Montana, that Clark handed him his written orders, along with the letter to Hugh Heney. The letters are in Clark’s handwriting, but the wording and spelling are clearly in Lewis’s style:

Camp on the River Rochejhone 115 Miles
below the Rocky Mountains July 25th [23rd] 1806

Sir:

You will with George Shannon, George Gibson & Richard Windser [Windsor] take the horses which we have brought with us to the Mandans Village on the Missouri. When you arrive at the Mandans, you will enquire of Mr. Jussomme [René Jusseaume] and any british Traders who may be in neighbourhood of this place for Mr. Hugh Heney. If you are informed, or have reasons to believe that he still remains at the establishments on the Assinniboin River, you will hire a pilot to conduct you and proceed on to those establishments and deliver Mr. Heney the letter which is directed to him. You will take with you to the Establishments on the Assinniboin River 12 or 14 horses, 3 of which Mr. Heney is to have choise if he agrees to engage in the Mission proposed to him.

In his written order, Clark also provided Pryor with a shopping list: “As maney of the remaining horses as may be necessary you will barter with the traders for such articles as we may stand in need of . . . .”

Clark’s Shopping List

flints
3 or 4 dozen knives
a few pounds of paint^[1]Paint pigment was sold by the pound. The first ready-mixed paint was patented in the U.S. in 1867. The captains may have intended to paint marks on the canoes to make them easier to identify from a … Continue reading
pepper
sugar
coffee or tea
2 dozen coarse handkerchiefs
2 small kegs of spirits
2 capotes^[2]Long, hooded cloaks or coats—either for the captains or else for sentries during cool nights.
tobacco
glauber salts^[3]This item suggests the general condition of the men’s health at this point, possibly because of the imbalances in their diet. Glauber’s Salts, or Sal Glauber, is a mild laxative. Gary … Continue reading
“such curious species of fur as you may see”

Clark’s list tells us something about how the Corps of Discovery was faring, as far as supplies were concerned, after more than two years on the trail. Of these items, Clark lists three top priorities: tobacco, knives, and flints.^[4]Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with Related Documents, 1783–1854 (2nd ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:131.

At Clark’s Fork

Clark and his contingent arrived here early in the morning, an estimated twenty-nine miles downstream from the Canoe Camp, and indicated in his courses and distances for that date that he believed it was the Bighorn River.^[5]Gary Moulton, ed., TheJournals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition (13 vols., Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001), 8:221n.

This . . . River is 150 yards wide at it’s Mouth and 100 a Short destance up. The water of a light Muddy Colour, and much Colder than that of the Rochejhone. A Small island is Situated imediately in its mouth.

Apparently he reviewed his Yellowstone River journey when he visited with the Mandans and Hidatsas again in mid-August 1806, and was told this was the river they called “The Lodge Where All Dance”—perhaps actually a reference to the “old Indian fort of logs and bark” some six miles farther downriver, that Shannon had noticed as they passed by:

This Lodge, a council lodge. It is of a Conocil form 60 feet [in] diamuter at its base built of 20 poles, each pole 2-1/2 feet in Secumpheranc and 45t feet Long . . . & covered with bushes. In this Lodge I observed a Cedar bush Sticking up on the opposit side of the lodge fronting the dore. On one side was a Buffalow head, and on the other Several Sticks bent and Stuck in the ground. A Stuffed Buffalow skin was Suspended from the Center with the back down. On the top of those poles were deckerated with feathers of the Eagle & Calumet Eagle, also Several Curious pieces of wood bent in Circleler form with sticks across them in form of a Griddle hung on tops of the lodge poles, others in form of a large Sturrip.

He later told Biddle that he considered this a good place for a trading post because the beaver country began here.

Pryor’s Journal

Pryor was also instructed to keep a journal, including “courses, distances, water courses, Soil production, & animals to be particularly noted.” Unfortunately, no such journal is known to exist today; reportedly it was lost in shipment to France for publication.

Personnel Changes

The following morning, assisted by Privates George Shannon and Richard Windsor, Pryor was to take their remaining seventeen horses to the Mandan villages. At the outset, Private George Gibson was to have been part of Pryor’s detail, but he had not sufficiently recovered from his accident on 18 July 1806, and the sergeant had set out with only two helpers, Privates George Shannon and Richard Windsor. But before the end of the first day of his mission, he found that even with only seventeen horses to drive, he would need more help. Some of the animals were stronger and faster than others, and every time they came upon a herd of bison the leaders would race ahead to circle them up, as the horses’ original Indian masters had trained them to do. The best solution seemed to be to send one man ahead to try to haze the big bovines out of the way, and for that Pryor needed an extra hand or two. So Clark assigned him Hugh Hall, a non-swimmer who perhaps had been nervously hoping for some excuse to get out of those tippy canoes.^[6]Clark, 24 July 1806.