Day-by-Day / August 10, 1804

August 10, 1804

First survivor

Below Blackbird Hill, NE The boats sail 22½ miles up the Missouri River and encamps within view of Blackbird Hill. Lewis collects the earliest plant specimen that survives today, field horsetail.

Blackbird, King of the Omaha[1]Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © … Continue reading

Sailing

Sailing
—We found the Musketoes very troublesome untill the Sun rose to some heighth, when they quitted us, the wind being fair we Sail’d the greatest part of this day.
Joseph Whitehouse

Blackbird Hill in View

Black bird the late King of the Mahars [Omahas] Toom or inclosed grave on the top of a high round Hill of about 300 feet in the Prarie L. S. bore west about 4 miles.
William Clark

 

Field Horsetail Specimen

No. 31. Taken on the 10th of August, a species of sand rush, joined and so much branched as to form a perfect broom; it is common to every part of this river at least as far as Latitude 42 N. it grows near the water’s edge in moist sand; the horses are remarkably fond of it.
Meriwether Lewis

 

Notes

Notes
1 Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © 2003 by Yellowstone Public Radio.
2 From Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-34 (London: Ackerman & Co, 1843), Vignette 10. A vignette is a borderless picture in which the image shades off irregularly into the color of the paper.
3 Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:459, 468. See also, Herbarium, specimens 61a and 61b.

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.