Isaac White

From Boston, Massachusetts, White had joined the army in 1801. He was serving at Fort Kaskaskia in Capt. Amos Stoddard‘s artillery when he enlisted in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Army records show his occupation as a laborer, a suitable skill given the physical effort needed to take the boats up the Missouri River to the Knife River Villages.^[1]Company Book of Amos Stoddard’s Artillery Company, Louisiana Territory Collection, Military Command Records, Adjutant’s Records, 1803–1805, Missouri State Historical Society Archives, St. … Continue reading

White was assigned to the return party, but on 12 June 1804, Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse wrote that seven Chouteau Fur Company pirogues heading downstream met up with the upward-bound Corps. The men gave the traders some of their wool blankets in exchange for buffalo robes and moccasins (although Whitehouse didn’t explain why), and the captains bought 300 pounds of buffalo grease. The captains also hired one of Chouteau’s party, Pierre Dorion, Sr., to return upriver with them until they met the Sioux, among whom he had lived for 20 years, to help persuade some of their chiefs to visit President Jefferson. Perhaps in an exchange of personnel, Whitehouse explains “we put on board . . . one Man . . . belonging to Captain Stoddards company of Artillery, who is going to Saint Louis . . . .” The man sent back could have been John Robinson, Ebenezer Tuttle, or White.^[2]Moulton, ed., Journals, 2:520-21, 522.