Day-by-Day / October 9, 1803

October 9, 1803

Young islands

On or near this date, Lewis leaves the Big Bone Lick landing at Gunpowder Creek and proceeds towards Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio where William Clark is expecting him.[1]No known record exists of Lewis’s travel on this date. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at the Falls of the Ohio on … Continue reading Fellow traveler Thomas Rodney describes that section of the Ohio River with its “young” islands.

Gunpowder Creek and Ohio River

Wide Gunpowder Creek flows into the Ohio River

Photo by Ryan Abrahamsen, Terrain 360. Explore the Gunpowder Creek 360º Spherical Image Map at www.terrain360.com/trail/gunpowder-creek.

Gunpowder Creek provided a boat landing that could be used to access Big Bone Lick. This landing is likely where Lewis rendezvoused with the barge and its crew.

Young Island

Contemporary traveler, Thomas Rodney, described the Ohio River below Big Bone Lick:

At ¼ before 12 we passed a large creek on NW shore which falls in just at the uper end of the island bar. Here we took in the Major and Shields who had been walking on shore several miles. At 20 minutes after 12 we past the lower end of this island and the next reach varies to SW again. This is a young island, the land low and the trees but small.
—Thomas Rodney[2]11 October 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

 

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Notes

Notes
↑1 No known record exists of Lewis’s travel on this date. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at the Falls of the Ohio on 14 October. Using Thomas Rodney’s journal and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, one conjecture is that Lewis stopped for the night near Warsaw, Kentucky on or near this date.
↑2 11 October 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), 115.

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.

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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).