On or near this day, Lewis passes present Guyan Creek and speeds through a narrow section of the Ohio River. He may have stopped for the day near an “ugly” riffle at the mouth of the Guyandotte River.[1]Because we have no journal entry from Lewis for this day, his exact location is unknown. He was at Letart Falls on 18 September and arrived in Cincinnati on 28 September. Based on Thomas … Continue reading
Elsewhere, the future governor of New Orleans promises its citizens an “inheritance of Freedom.”
Ohio River Map (1814)
Zadok Cramer, The Navigator, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Pittsburgh Library System, http://www.archive.org/details/navigatorcontain1814cram accessed on 24 December 2018.
Narrow River
At ¼ before eleven we passed Little Quindot [Guyan Creek], Virginia shore. A riffle opposite to it. Very narrow channel over it in the middle of the river and the whole stream of the river here between the bars on both sides only a hundred yards wide. It is the narrowest part we have seen.
—Thomas Rodney[2]29 September 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
Guyandotte River
[W]e were sailing at the rate of 6 or 7 miles an hower and awhile after when we got in the reach above Great Guiendot [Guyandotte] we dined. A high yellow hill appeared at the end of the reach and on the point bellow the mouth of the river. At half past 5 o’clock we passed the mouth of Guiendot and the ugly riffle opposite the mouth of it.
—Thomas Rodney[3]Ibid., 87.
Mile-long Riffle
Cramer, in his 1802 edition of the The Navigator which Lewis or his pilot likely carried with him, describes the riffle at the mouth of the Guyandotte River:
Here is a very long, difficult and rocky riffle. The channel begins near the Virginia shore, above the mouth of Guiandot, continues with it until you come almost in full sight of the mouth of it, then takes across the river at nearly right angles until it reaches near the N. W. shore, when it bears towards the middle of the river. The riffle continues to a creek, one mile below Guiandot.
—Zadok Cramer[4]Zadok Cramer, The Navigator: Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers… (Pittsburgh: Zadok Cramer, Bookseller & Stationer, 1802), 30.
Louisiana’s Inheritance
New Orleans, Sept. 20, 1803.
Fellow-citizens of Louisiana:
On the great and interesting event now finally consummated—an event so advantageous to yourselves, and so glorious to the United America—I cannot forbear offering you my warmest congratulations. The wise policy of the Consul of France has, by the cession of Louisiana to the United States, secured to you a connexion beyond the reach of change, and to your posterity the sure inheritance of Freedom.
Under the auspices of the American Government, you may confidently rely upon the security of your liberty, your property, and the religion of your choice. You may with equal certainty rest assured that your commerce will be promoted and your agriculture cherished—in a word, that your true interest will be among the primary objects of our National Legislature.
WM. C. C. Claiborne.[5]Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2nd sess., 1233 at “A Century of Lawmaking,” Library of Congress, accessed 11 August 2022, … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Because we have no journal entry from Lewis for this day, his exact location is unknown. He was at Letart Falls on 18 September and arrived in Cincinnati on 28 September. Based on Thomas Rodney’s journal of his similar trip down the Ohio and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, it is a conjecture that Lewis stopped for the day above or below the dangerous rapid at the mouth of Guyandotte River. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | 29 September 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), 85–86. |
| ↑3 | Ibid., 87. |
| ↑4 | Zadok Cramer, The Navigator: Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers… (Pittsburgh: Zadok Cramer, Bookseller & Stationer, 1802), 30. |
| ↑5 | Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2nd sess., 1233 at “A Century of Lawmaking,” Library of Congress, accessed 11 August 2022, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=014/llac014.db&recNum=613. |
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
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).