On or near this date, the expedition approaches the numerous islands above the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers described by Fortescue Cuming in 1807. One week ahead of Lewis and Clark, fellow traveler Thomas Rodney describes a Native family living in this area.[1]No daily record of expedition’s travel between Louisville and Fort Massac is known to exist. Locating them near the Islands above the mouth of the Cumberland River on this date is an estimate based … Continue reading
1814 Map of the Lower Ohio
Zadok Cramer, The Navigator, 1814.
Islands 89–91 are the First, Second, and Third Sisters followed by Stewart’s Island (92) and the Cumberland Islands (93–96). This map was not in the edition of The Navigator available to the captains in 1803.
Islands
A series of islands greeted travelers as they approached the Cumberland River, only 60 miles from the mouth of the Ohio. An island blocks the mouth, forcing most to pass it and row upstream
—Fortescue Cuming[2]Fortescue Cuming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country: Through the States of Ohio and Kentucky, a voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and a trip through the Mississippi territory, and … Continue reading
An Indian Family
The old man and woman had no ornaments. The eldest girl had a necklace of glass purple beads and a half a dozen ringlets of tin bobs in each ear. They had some durty raged linnen and calico beside their blankets around them. They, I presume, however, were not of much distinction; nor could we larn of what nation they were as they could not talk our language or we theirs; only the old woman on seeing a cheese pronounced the name very distinctly.
—Thomas Rodney[3]2 November 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
Notes
| ↑1 | No daily record of expedition’s travel between Louisville and Fort Massac is known to exist. Locating them near the Islands above the mouth of the Cumberland River on this date is an estimate based on information from travelers of the period and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Fortescue Cuming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country: Through the States of Ohio and Kentucky, a voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and a trip through the Mississippi territory, and part of West Florida, commenced at Philadelphia in the winter of 1807 . . . (Pittsburgh: Cramer, Spear, & Eichbaum, 1810). |
| ↑3 | 2 November 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), 160. |
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.
This page was funded in part by the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, U.S. National Park Service.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
- Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
- Montana Committee for the Humanities
- Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee
- The Capital Gallery (Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)
- Yellowstone Public Radio
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).