In present West Virginia, the Ohio River is deep enough to navigate without the help of horses or oxen. When the two canoes fail to arrive, the sounding horn is blown.
Already stationed on the Mississippi, the expedition’s future Sergeant of the Guard, John Ordway, writes home.
Weirton, West Virginia
May 2015 by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, highsm 31932 hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.31932.
Deeper Water
Again foggey, loaded both my canoes and waited till the fogg disappeared set out at 8 OCl. had some difficulty in passing several riffles today but surmounted it without having recorse to horses or oxen—
—Meriwether Lewis
Sounding Horn
© 2018 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Sounding the Trumpet
it grew very dark and my canoes which had on board the most valuable part of my stores had not come up, ordered the trumpet to be sound and they answered.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Rainy Night
rained at six this evening and continued with some intervals through the night to rain pretty heard . . . . the stores in the canoes being well secured with oil cloth I concluded to let them remain on board and directed that the water which they maid should be bailed out of them occasionally through the night, which was done—
—Meriwether Lewis
Dear Brother
John Ordway—not yet aware of the Expedition heading his way—writes a letter to his brother Stephen from his frontier post in at Kaskaskia.
Kaskaskias Indiana Territory 5 Sept. 1803.
Sir,
. . . . .
Give my love to my Parents & brethren & Compliments to all my acquaintances—I enjoy an uninterrupted State of health & retain my usual Spirits with an unusual degree of contentment & vivacity . . . .
I have nothing to fear while I enjoy the common blessings of Divine Providence.
John Ordway Searj in
Russell Bissells Compy 1st Regt.P.S. This is a very old Town with about 200 houses in it and the ruins of many more. We lie on a hill in Site of the Town within a quarter of a mile, and we have built a Garrison hear . . . .
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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.
This page was funded in part by the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, U.S. National Park Service.
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Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
- Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
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- Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee
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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).