On or near this date, the expedition passes present Owensboro, Kentucky—then named Yellow Banks for the color of the Ohio riverbank. Fellow traveler Thomas Rodney describes giant cane and numerous waterfowl in this area.[1]No known record exists of expedition’s travel between Louisville and Fort Massac. Using information from travelers of the period and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, one conjecture is … Continue reading
Giant Cane near Uniontown, Kentucky
1920 (Detail)
Kentucky Geological Survey Photographs, Courtesy Kentucky Historical Society, https://www.kyhistory.com/cdm/compoundobject/collection/PH/id/7714/rec/135.
Giant Cane
“The cane now grows plenty on both shores.”
—Thomas Rodney[2]25 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), … Continue reading
Noisy Waterfowl
[A]bove and below the Yellow Banks there are vast ponds or little lakes a small distance from the river on both side where wild fowl assemble in vast numbers. We heard several guns fire at them and heard such a tumultious noise of the geese and cranes there, as indicated thousands and tens of thousands.
—Thomas Rodney[3]Ibid., 138.
Notes
| ↑1 | No known record exists of expedition’s travel between Louisville and Fort Massac. Using information from travelers of the period and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, one conjecture is that the captains were at Owensboro near this date. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | 25 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 135. |
| ↑3 | Ibid., 138. |
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
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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.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).