Leaving Pittsburgh

On the Ohio

Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 ock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage.”^[1]Gary E. Moulton, editor, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001), 2:65.

With those words, written on 31 August 1803, Meriwether Lewis began his first journal entry on the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

Even though Lewis himself declared the mouth of the River Dubois to be the expedition’s official point of departure, the two and one-half months spent descending the Ohio River were in fact its real beginning

Often referred to as the recruitment phase of the expedition, it was that–but so much more! The Ohio was where the all-important foundation–the nucleus–of what became the Corps of Discovery was formed. On the Ohio, Lewis and Clark met to actually form their partnership in discovery. On the Ohio, the famous Nine Young Men from Kentucky were recruited and enlisted. On the Ohio, York, George Drouillard, and at least two others joined the expedition. While on the Ohio, these men began forming relationships and friendships, and a dedication to their mission and to each other that would carry them, through dangers and hardships, to the Pacific and back. Some of these men were also among the most important members of the Corps.

When Lewis finally left Pittsburgh, at least one month behind schedule, his destination was Louisville, Kentucky, where he would rendezvous with William Clark and the men Clark had recruited. Lewis knew his friend and former army commander was coming with him. On 19 June 1803, he had written Clark inviting him to join the endeavor as co-commander. Then, after making final arrangements, he left Washington City on 5 July 1803, for Pittsburgh, arriving there on 15 July 1803. And then he waited, and waited, for the barge (called the ‘boat’ or ‘barge’ but never the ‘keelboat’) he had expected to be almost ready for his journey to be completed because of the “unpardonable negligence and inattention of the boat-builders who . . . were a set of most incorrigible drunkards, and with whom, neither threats, intreaties nor any other mode of treatment which I could devise had any effect.”^[2]Donald Jackson, editor, The Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with related Documents, 2 vols., revised edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:125. One consolation during this frustrating delay was the arrival by 3 August 1803 of Clark’s letter of 18 July 1803 agreeing to “cheerfully” join Lewis as co-leader of the Expedition and “partake of the dangers, difficulties, and fatigues, as well as the . . . honors & rewards of the result of such an enterprise, should we be successful in accomplishing it.”^[3]Jackson, 1:110. Lewis’s invitation to Clark to join him on the Expedition had arrived at a perfect time in Clark’s life. He had impoverished himself trying to help his brother George … Continue reading So, happily, Clark was coming, but Lewis’s expected rendezvous with his partner in discovery in Louisville was delayed later and later, from mid-August to late August to early October.^[4]Jackson, 1:57, 117, 125. In letters Lewis wrote Clark dated 19 June 1803 (from Washington), 3 August 1803 (from Pittsburgh), and 28 September 1803 (from Cincinnati), he stated his expected arrival … Continue reading He finally arrived on 14 October 1803.

While Lewis waited for his military barge to be finished, he put together his temporary crew and took three young men on trial. Two of these recruits were still with him when he reached Cincinnati on 28 September. They were most likely with him when he reached Louisville and are believed to be two of the nine men^[5]Jackson, 1:125. Who those recruits were are not definitely known. It is generally agreed that George Shannon was one of them. About eighteen years old, he had been attending school in Pittsburgh, and … Continue reading enlisted at the Falls of the Ohio.^[6]The Falls of the Ohio was an approximately two-mile stretch of rapids through three channels. In times of high water they could be navigated without great danger or difficulty but, as the water … Continue reading Clark, meanwhile, was busy recruiting, and wrote Lewis on 24 July 1803, that he already had men of a “discription calculated to work & go thro . . . those labours & fatigues which will be necessary.” Almost a month later, on 21 August 1803, Clark specified that he had retained four recruits and promised others an answer after consulting with Lewis.^[7]Jackson, 1:113, 117. Clark is believed to have had seven recruits waiting for Lewis. They were Joseph and Reubin Field, Charles Floyd, Nathaniel Hale Pryor, John Shields, William Bratton, and perhaps … Continue reading

After leaving Pittsburgh, Lewis found progress down the Ohio to be slow. The summer had been dry and the river was lower than anyone could remember. By late summer and ys were typically low, in that era before dams and navigation pools. Lewis’s speed down the Ohio was in the hands of Mother Nature and his own determination. Writing to Clark on 3 August 1803, he stated that he would make his way downriver even if he “should not be able to make greater speed than a boat’s length pr. day.”^[8]Jackson, 1:116.

Lewis of course traveled at a faster pace than that, even if the going was sometimes painfully slow. Going past landmarks and towns that can still be visited today, Lewis and his little flotilla of barge, pirogue, and at least one canoe, made their way downstream using the current, oars, poles, and sails. But the men also had to use non-nautical means, pushing and pulling the boat by brute strength over sandbars and through sections of only a few inches deep. When the obstacles proved too difficult, Lewis hired oxen and horses from local farmers to drag the big boat downstream.^[9]Moulton, 2:67-74. Within a week of leaving Pittsburgh, the boats had stopped at Brunot’s Island, where a demonstration of the air gun almost ended in disaster when a bystander was grazed by an errant ball; had passed McKee’s Rock and stopped at Steubenville, Ohio; had passed Charlestown (present Wellsburg, West Virginia) and arrived at Wheeling. Lewis noted the dense fog that formed over the river, making visibility very low. These conditions also caused such extremely heavy dews that water dripped from the trees as if it were raining.^[10]Moulton, 2:67.

Lewis arrived at Wheeling on 7 September 1803. He stayed two days, allowing the crew time to rest, do their laundry, and have bread baked. He also picked up supplies he had sent overland from Pittsburgh so that the barge would be lighter in the shallow upper reaches of the Ohio, and purchased another pirogue—the red pirogue that would travel over 3,000 miles on the journey. The young explorer almost recruited a doctor, William Patterson, the son of one of his Philadelphia tutors, Robert Patterson, but the young man failed to appear at the designated departure time, apparently deciding to pass on the western adventure. On the 8th Lewis dined with Thomas Rodney, en route to Mississippi Territory to take his Jefferson-appointed position as a judge. Rodney thought Lewis “a stout young man but not so robust as to look able to fully accomplish the object of his mission.” That evening the travelers enjoyed watermelons onboard the barge.^[11]Moulton, 2:74075. For Thomas Rodney’s account of his trip down the Ohio and encounters with Lewis, as well as with Clark once he reached Louisville, see the published journal of his trip … Continue reading Another tasty dish was squirrel; Lewis twice commented on the creatures migrating across the Ohio, and sending “my dog” into the river to “take as many each day as I had occation for, they wer fat and I thought them when fryed a pleasent food.”^[12]Moulton, 2:79, 82. “My dog” is of course the famous Newfoundland, Seaman, who accompanied Lewis on the entire expedition. He so endeared himself to the members of the Corps that he is referred to in the journals as “our dog.” Loyal to the end, there is good evidence that Seaman was with Lewis at the time of the latter’s death in 1809 and died on his master’s grave.^[13]James J. Holmberg, Seaman’s Fate.