What's Out There?

For 28 months Meriwether Lewis and William Clark searched for a water route across the unchartered American west.  They endured months of cold, weeks of hunger and fatigue from days of backbreaking labor on the prairie.  Their party of 26 soldiers and one civilian were harassed by Indians all along the way.

The Corps of Discovery, as they were called, trained for months for survival in the wilderness.  They lost only one man to probable appendicitis.

On May 14, 1804 Lewis began from Camp Dubois, outside of St. Louis.  Clark joined him at St. Charles days later.  With a 55 foot long keelboat and 2 pirogues (long canoes), they left civilization behind to travel up the Missouri River. It proved to be a nightmare of sandbars, obstacles, changing currents and changing river banks.

Clark was the navigator, Lewis the journalist.  By July they had arrived at Council Bluffs and had their first Indian encounter.  Ottos, Omahas, and Missouri were given medals from President Jefferson and urged to live in peace with the white man.  President Jefferson was known as the "Great White Father in Washington".

Next time...clash with the Tetons.
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Today in Pioneer History: " On December 10, 1830, Emily Dickinson is born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dickinson was a witty and popular student but was viewed as somewhat unconventional. She rarely left Amherst,  preferring her home, her stern lawyer father, invalid mother, spinster sister, and domineering brother as her family life. Dickinson had only one romance that is known about today, with Judge Otis Lord. who people thought she might marry but the romance ended."