In Pittsburgh, the expedition’s barge is nearly ready to load. The low Ohio River likely has Lewis wishing for rain. As described by fellow traveler Thaddeus Harris, the autumnal rains typically won’t start until October.
Flatboat with Sail
Artist unknown. Digital source: CW Mars (Central and Western Massachusetts Resource Sharing).
The caption above: Flatboat used in South Hadley Canal [Connecticut], 1795–1845
The expedition’s barge has a narrow keel that draws more water than a flatboat. Given the shallow Ohio River in late August, navigation will be difficult.
Lewis Wishes for Rain
The principal navigation of the Ohio river is during the floods of the spring and autumn. The spring season commences at the breaking up of the ice in the Alleghany, which generally happens about the middle of February, and continues for eight or ten weeks. The fall season is occasioned by the autumnal rains in October, and lasts till about the beginning of December, when the ice begins to form. But the times of high-water can scarcely be called periodical; for they vary considerably as the season is dry or rainy, and with the later setting in or breaking up of winter. Sometimes, also, the falling of heavy showers on the mountains, during the summer, will so swell the sources of the Monongahela as to supply a temporary sufficiency of water for the purpose of navigation.
—Thaddeus Harris[1]Thaddeus Harris, The Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains Made in the Spring of the Year 1803, p. 43–44 in Reuben G. Thwaites, Travels West of the Alleghanies … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Thaddeus Harris, The Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains Made in the Spring of the Year 1803, p. 43–44 in Reuben G. Thwaites, Travels West of the Alleghanies (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1904), p. 344. |
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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.
- 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).