At Wood River, Clark has blankets and other goods set out to air and dry before placing them in a storeroom. Drouillard is sent out to hunt and returns with a buck.
Elsewhere, Pierre-Clément de Laussat—the French prefect at New Orleans—has his opinion of the boundaries of Louisiana reported to Secretary of State James Madison by William Claiborne and James Wilkinson.
Trade Blankets
Display at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, U. S. National Park Service. © 2011 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Drying and Storing Blankets
a fair day I put out Blankets goods &c. &c to dry and Stored them in the Store room apparently in good order nearly finish my Chimney to day
—William Clark
Drouillard Hunts
Sent out Drewyer to hunt to day, early— he returned Late with a Buck, he Saw three Bar on the other Side of the Prarie
—William Clark
The Limits of Louisiana
New Orleans December 27th. 1803
Sir
In a private conference with Mr Laussat we sounded him as to the limits of the ceded Territory; he stated positively that the Eastern Boundary was the same as had been established at the Treaty of Paris (1763) through the River Iberville and the middle of the Lakes Maurepas & Pontchertrain to the Sea; [That France had strenuously insisted to have it extended to Mobille, but that Spain had peremptorily refused it: that on the South Western Side, the claims of France extended to the Rio Bravo as high as the 30 Degree of Latitude &c.] but it was understood that Spain did not fully recognise the Claim to that extent, that it was not the intention of France to leave the Western Boundary from the 30th Degree of Latitude on the Rio Bravo Northward undetermined, because it was an extravagance to think of tracing a line from thence to the Source of the Mississippi, at this day through Countries, which had not even been visited by the most enterprizing Travellers.
William C. C. Claiborne
Ja Wilkinson[1]“Claiborne and Wilkinson to James Madison, 27 December 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-06-02-0226. [Original source: The … Continue reading
Winter Camp at Wood River (Camp Dubois) is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The site, near Hartford, Illinois, is managed as Lewis and Clark State Historic Site and is open to the public.
Notes
| ↑1 | “Claiborne and Wilkinson to James Madison, 27 December 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-06-02-0226. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, vol. 6, 1 November 1803–31 March 1804, ed. Mary A. Hackett, J. C. A. Stagg, Ellen J. Barber, Anne Mandeville Colony, and Angela Kreider. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002, pp. 232–234.] The source author adds “The words enclosed in brackets come from the second recipient copy, which clarifies an error in the first copy.” |
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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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