Day-by-Day / August 1, 1804

August 1, 1804

A botanist's field day

Council Bluff, Fort Atkinson, NE Clark prepares a peace pipe anticipating that the Otoes will soon arrive for a council. Two men search for lost horses and others search for the Otoes. Neither are found.

Otoes Still at Large

August the 1st 1804 a fair morning Despatched two men after the horses lost yesterday, one man back to the place from which the messinger was Sent for the Ottoes [Otoes] to See if any Indians was or had been there Since our deptr. he return’d and informed that no person had been there Sence we left it . . . . Prepared the Pipe of Peace   verry flashey.
William Clark

Clark’s Birthday

This being my birth day I order’d a Saddle of fat Vennison, an Elk fleece & a Bevertail to be cooked and a Desert of Cheries, Plumbs, Raspberries Currents and grapes of a Supr. quallity.
—William Clark

Field for a Botanist

the Praries Contain . . . a great Variety of Plants & flours not Common to the U S. What a field for a Botents [botanist] and a natirless [naturalist]
—William Clark

Also on this Day

Lewis took celestial observations, the horses could not be found, hunters were successful, and the mosquitoes were bothersome.

Lost Specimen No. 12

No. 12. 1st of August 1804. one of our hunters brought us a bough of the purple courant, which is frequently cultivated in the Atlantic states; the fruit was ripe; I presume it is a native of North America— here it grows generally in the praries but is not very abundant.—
Meriwether Lewis

Moulton identifies this lost specimen, received by John Vaughn in 1805 (see The Donation Book), as Ribes americanum, wild black currant.[1]Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:454, 468.

 

Notes

Notes
1 Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:454, 468.

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.