Day-by-Day / September 15, 1803

September 15, 1803

Passing Belpre

On a rainy day, Lewis and his crew head down the Ohio passing present Little Kanawha and Little Hocking rivers. The barge must be lifted over a gravel bar, and they are further delayed when one of the smaller boats falls behind. They stop for the day near Blennerhassett Island.

Rainy Day

one of the canoes fell a considerable distance behind, we were obliged to ly too for her coming up which detained us several hours; it rained very hard on us from 7 this morning untill about three when it broke away and evening as clear with a few flying clouds.
Meriwether Lewis

 

Little and Big Hocking Rivers

passed the mouths of the little and big Hockhockin and the settlement of Bellpray—a yanke settlement   passed several bad riffles over which we were obliged to lift the boat . . . .
—Meriwether Lewis

On this day, Lewis passed the Little Kanawha and Hocking rivers. Kanawha may be a reference to Conoy an Algonquian tribe related to the Lenape Delawares.[1]Hodge, Frederick Webb. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Government Printing Office, 1912), 1:339. Hockhockin [Hockhocking] may be a form of the Delaware term for ‘bottle-gourd place.’[2]William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 169..

Blennerhassett Island

Lewis made no mention of Blennerhassett Island. Just nine days behind Lewis, fellow traveler Thomas Rodney recorded this comment:

[September 24, 1803]

The next island we came to was Blaney Hazzards [Harman Blennerhassett], 2 miles below the Little Canaway. The Island as to buildings is very elegantly improved. The dwelling house struck our view as soon as we turned the point of Belleprie.
This Island like all the rest in this river is very rich. The grass in particular is fine on it.
Thomas Rodney[3]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), 71–72.

Also on this day . . .

 

Notes

Notes
1 Hodge, Frederick Webb. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Government Printing Office, 1912), 1:339.
2 William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 169.
3 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), 71–72.

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  • 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.
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