At Fort Clatsop, Christmas is celebrated with gifts of tobacco for the smokers and handkerchiefs to the others. Sacagawea gives two dozen white weasel tails to Clark, and the day ends with “all the party Snugly fixed in their huts”.
Christmas
by Yellowstone Public Radio[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
Lonely Window
© 11 November 2008 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Taken with cooperation from Lewis and Clark National Historic Park, Fort Clatsop.
On Christmas day, only the officers’ room had a chimney. See Building Fort Clatsop.
Christmas at Fort Clatsop
we would have Spent this day the nativity of Christ in feasting, had we any thing either to raise our Sperits or even gratify our appetites, our Diner concisted of pore Elk, So much Spoiled that we eate it thro’ mear necessity, Some Spoiled pounded fish and a fiew roots.
—William Clark
Last of the Tobacco
[The Captains] divided out the last of their tobacco among the men that used and the rest they gave each a Silk hankerchief, as a Christmast gift . . . .
—John Ordway
Christmas Gifts
I recved a presnt of Capt L. of a fleece hosrie Shirt Draws and Socks—, a pr. mockersons of Whitehouse a Small Indian basket of Gutherich, two Dozen white weazils tails of the Indian woman
—William Clark
Thankfulness
We had no ardent spirit of any kind among us; but are mostly in good health, A blessing, which we esteem more, than all the luxuries this life can afford, and the party are all thankful to the Supreme Being, for his goodness towards us.— hoping he will preserve us in the same, & enable us to return to the United States again in safety.
—Joseph Whitehouse
Smoking Huts
We found our huts smoked; there being no chimneys in them except in the officers’ rooms. The men were therefore employed, except some hunters who went out, in making chimnies to the huts.
—Patrick Gass
Day’s End
The day proved Showery all day, the Inds. left us this evening . . . . all the party Snugly fixed in their huts—
—William Clark
Weather Diary
Day of the Month Winds State of the Weather 25th S W. rain after thunder & Lightning rained at intervales last night and to day.
—Meriwether Lewis[2]To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has spelled out some abbreviations and replaced “do” [ditto] with the word it represents.
Fort Clatsop is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The site is managed by the Lewis and Clark National and State Historic Parks.
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. |
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| ↑2 | To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has spelled out some abbreviations and replaced “do” [ditto] with the word it represents. |
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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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