Lewis and his crew are about halfway between Big Bone Lick and the Falls of the Ohio.[1]No known record exists of Lewis’s travel between Big Bone Lick and Louisville. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at the … Continue reading As reported by contemporary traveler Thomas Rodney, there is an island full of cattle, hogs, and turkeys; and mosquitoes begin to appear. No doubt Lewis noticed them too.
Mosquito
Aedes aegypti
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Mosquitoes Begin to Appear
The first musketo I have seen I killed just now. We have not been troubled on the river or on shore with insects of any kind.
—Thomas Rodney[2]13 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
Hog Island
At 5 o’clock we passed the above island, it being, including the bars above and below, about two miles long; but it is a young island. The wood on it being small, we saw cattle, hogs, and turkies on it, and as the hogs were most numerous, we call it Hog Island.
—Thomas Rodney[3]Ibid.
Notes
| ↑1 | No known record exists of Lewis’s travel between Big Bone Lick and Louisville. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at the Falls of the Ohio on 14 October. Using Thomas Rodney’s journal and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, to estimate daily distances, one conjecture is that Lewis stopped for the night at Westport, Kentucky on or near this date. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | 13 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), 118. |
| ↑3 | Ibid. |
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The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
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).