Show History Lewis And Real Adventure By DOROTHY DiCHELLIS May 1804 was an exciting day for President Thomas Eight hundred miles away in St. Louis the 23 men of the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery were aboard their keelboat headed up the Missouri on their way to fulfill a 20 year dream of the JEFFERSON HAD listened to tales of the British and Russian fur trade that was flourishing in America's Northwest from an adventurer named John Ledyard when he had been in France as Minister in Jefferson had made two rather clandestine abortive attempts to send someone into the Then in 1792 an Robert had discovered the mouth of the Columbia River and in 1793 a Alexander Mackenzie had blazed a trail across Canada to the JEFFERSON wanted the United States to have a foothold in the he was curious about the amount of beaver he longed to know whether or not a navigable route existed across the continent to the west coast of North The available maps were outlines and no white man knew the distance from the Dakotas to the nor what lay In 1803 Jefferson finally had a legitimate reason for sending an expedition into the Napoleon sold the United States the square miles of the Louisiana thus extending the country's borders to the Rocky Mountains and north to He had convinced Congress to appropriate the money for this carefully conceived and brilliantly led JEFFERSON had been grooming 29 year old Meriwether Lewis for years to the and had taken Lewis to Washington as his personal secretary when he had entered the He had sent Lewis to the University of Pennsylvania for concentrated tutoring in natural sciences and Captain Lewis had chosen as his co-commander an old army 33 year old William WHILE CLARK chose and drilled the men who would make up the Lewis went to Harpers West Virginia for Since he found the long rifle loo fragile for wilderness he redesigned the gun which as the Ferry became the first mass-produced arm of the United States Their highest cost item was gifts for the Indians including glass bells and peace medals that Jefferson had had LEWIS AND CLARK knew their instructions from Jefferson and carried them When they returned two years and miles later they had filled over a dozen recorded information about 50 tribes of added species of new plant life and cataloged They also established finally that there was no water route to the The news that would most effect the West was the report of an abundance of They traveled up the murky making winter quarters with the Man-dans where the river turns west in North HERE THEY engaged as interpreter His wife was 17 year old a Shoshoni who had been stolen from her people far to the west and had subsequently been sold to the In February Lewis helped deliver her When the exploring party left on April Sacajawea and her baby accompanied she hoping to reach her people They floated reached Great named the Madison and Jefferson descended the Jefferson and were guided by Sacajawea across the Continental Divide through Lemhi Pass on the Idaho-Montana A FEW miles beyond they reached the Shoshoni Indians who were unfriendly and reluctant to let them have much needed After it was discovered that the present chief was Sacajawea's negotiations went Lewis noticed that some of the Indian horses bore Spanish They were told that the horses were obtained from the Spanish days travel which would indicate that the Spanish had gone as far north into Utah as Bear SACAJAWEA chose to continue on with the group of her son gazing from his mother's back with black eyes at the wilderness and the white men who would alter his Clark later educated this named Baptiste who ultimately left civilization to return to the working for a time for Charles Bent who freighted along the Santa Fe Lewis and Clark led their men across the and along the Their joy was recorded in their diaries when at last they could hear from far off the noise of waves crashing against THEY SPENT the winter overlooking the and in the spring on March 1806 they began the journey It would take them six months to reach St. With discipline and common sense they had opened the way into the American Years after their delegations of Indians would come into St. wearing Jefferson's peace medals and seeking the headed William Meriwether Lewis lived but three years after his return from his great He was either murdered as committed OVER IN New York five year old Young did his share of the chores unmindful of the part he would play in the settling of the western wilderness in 40 years First many events must take Going near the Mandan Lewis and Clark had met two American a sign of things to The trapping enterprise would reveal the unknown land of Utah that had been left blank on the map of Lewis and What Dale L. Morgan calls the Age of the the era of the Rocky Mountain Man was about to Bernard Journals of Lewis and Mifflin Dale L. Great Salt of New Mexico Albuquerque David of Nebraska |