By Topic: Lewis and Clark Trail

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Lewis and Clark War Vessels, Then and Now

The United States Navy has named its newest ship in the Lewis and Clark class of underway resupply vessels, the  USNS Alan Shepard, honoring the first American in space, Rear Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr.  The Lewis and Clark class of navy ships are dry cargo ships, whose function is to transfer cargo while at sea to station ships and other naval warfare forces.  They carry ammunition, food, limited quantities of fuel, and various other items.  Two earlier ships were christened the USNS Lewis and Clark and the USNS Sacagawea. Twelve ships are planned, and all will be named for famous American explorers and pioneers. To learn more, visit the Wikipedia website.  A Lewis and Clark class vessel is 689 feet long and 106 feet across. By comparison, the Lewis and Clark keelboat is 55 feet long, and is based on the design of a galliot, or Spanish war vessel that kind of has a similiar profile.

The keelboat shown here is the creation of Butch Bouvier, who has custom made keelboats all across the country for Lewis and Clark interpretive centers.  This is one of his first creations, and the only one that floats for much of the year. It is based at Lewis and Clark State Park on Blue Lake at Onawa, Iowa about 80 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa. Butch’s other Lewis and Clark keelboats are all on land or  inside buildings. To read more about the controversies regarding its design, visit his website—flat or round bottomed, keel or no keel? I am on Butch’s side on these issues.

We have had some Lewis and Clark Study  Group discussion of exactly what kind of boat Lewis and Clark had. It was called a "barge" or a "batteau" in the journals. The design is based on a drawing done by William Clark found in his journal.  But it really isn’t a traditional keelboat, as they were long and narrow, pointed at both ends, and with a cabin in the middle.  I remembered that I had seen an earlier sketch by William Clark of a Spanish War Vessel, that looked like this boat. His sketch is at the Missouri Historical Society. Landon Y. Jones refers to it in his excellent biography, William Clark and the Shaping of the West.   (If you buy the biography from the Lewis and Clark Road Trips website, or from this link, my Amazon Associate account will be credited.)

This drawing is from an out of print book, Spanish War Vessels on the Mississippi 1792-1798 by Abraham P. Nasatir (Yale University Press, 1968). William Clark as a young Lieutenant in the United States Army made two trips down the Mississippi, in 1793 and 1795. In 1795 he delivered a letter from General Anthony Wayne to the commanding general of the Spanish forces, Governor Gayosco de Lemos, demanding to know by what authority the Spanish had established a fort at Chickasaw Bluffs (Nashville, Tennessee) on the east side of the Mississippi River in US territory. Gayosco replied he had bought it from the Chickasaw Indians. When Clark returned to Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio) he made a full report to General Wayne, including a sketch of the governor’s Spanish war vessel, or galliot, shown here in a later sketch from 1798.

Posted by Kira Gale on 12/07/2006 at 11:38 AM

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

ITs WOOT Chinook Canoe Comes to Clarksville, Indiana

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share these photos taken by Betty Kluesner of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles in early November, 2006 at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. Dick Brumley, the builder of the Chinook Canoe, ITs WOOT, which means "Black Bear" is showing it to schoolchildren during the "Lewis and Clark Homecoming" at Clarksville. The canoe was blessed in Chinook ceremonies at Long Beach, Washington. Members of the DESC wrote about it in their modern online journal on March 20, 2006.  Bud Clark, the leader of DESC, and great-great-great grandson of William Clark wrote:  Our relationship with the Chinook has taken us outside the realm of living history and into a very personal relationship, where perhaps in terms of healing and reconciliation, we are making history! To everyone’s knowledge this is the first time in 200 years permission was granted to replicate a Chinook canoe and subsequently receive a tribal blessing to use it in our journey. The special bond we have made with the Chinook is very real and meaningful, and we in the Discovery Expedition know it represents the very essence of our Bicentennial Legacy.

 Members of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles sleep in replicas of the same army tents used by members of the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery.  When Meriwether Lewis joined William Clark at the Falls of the Ohio, they conducted ceremonies enlisting the "Nine Young Men from Kentucky" into the United States Army. Two of the men had accompanied Meriwether Lewis from the east: 18 year old George Shannon who joined him at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and John Colter, at Maysville, Ohio. The other seven were from the local area of Clarksville and Louisville, Kentucky. They were: cousins Charles Floyd and Nathaniel Pryor; brothers Joseph and Reuben Field; William Bratton; John Shields and George Gibson. Lewis had asked Clark to find "some good hunters, stout, healthy, unmarried men, accustomed to the woods, and capable of bearing bodily fatigue in a pretty considerable degree."

The George Rogers Clark Cabin at the Falls of the Ohio State Park overlooks the Ohio River with a view  of Louisville, Kentucky across the river. General General George Rogers Clark founded both Louisville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Indiana. He was the older brother of William Clark, and second only to George Washington in the respect of his countrymen for the services he performed during the Revolutionary War. Due to his military victories, Britain ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War, doubling the size of the new country. In 1783 George Rogers Clark had been asked by Thomas Jefferson to lead an expedition across the continent to the Pacific Northwest. Twenty years later, his younger brother would fulfill his dream. William Clark was living with his brother at his home when he joined the expedition.  To read more about George Rogers Clark, visit the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park website.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/23/2006 at 10:58 AM

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Google Earth Adds Historic 1814 Lewis and Clark Map

Google Earth has added a very cool new feature—16 historical maps from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.  To use the historical maps feature, the latest version of Google Earth is needed.  A free download of the beta version released on November 1st is available at  Google Earth.  Naturally I wanted to see the Lewis and Clark Map from 1814.  I tilted the view, added grid lines and zoomed fairly far out for this screen shot.  You can zoom right in and easily read all the notations in the historical map.  What is even more fascinating is that you can search for any modern location on the basic Google Earth map made from satellite images, and it will be pinpointed on the historic map. I searched for Butte, Montana and saw William Clark’s notation "Oat-la-shoot 430 souls." Nearby was Ordway River and Pryor’s Creek. You can hide the historic map layer and search the satellite image map to compare features.

This map was first published in the History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark,  the first publication of the journals in 1814.  This edition, known as the "Biddle Edition" may be seen at the Library of Congress American Memory website in "The First American West: the Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820."

The Lewis and Clark Road Trips book and website includes our own version of matching the historic campsites trail with  modern maps. 573 historical campsite locations, as determined by Professor Bob Bergantino of Montana Tech, are placed on topo maps in the book, and listed on spreadsheets. The spreadsheets will also be available online as of November 20, 2006. All of the locations are cross referenced to the journals.  This Google Earth map will now allow us to follow the map drawn by William Clark in 1810.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/14/2006 at 09:46 PM

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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Sakakawea Country, New Town, North Dakota

Sakakawea, Sacajawea, Sacagawea—how do you spell her name? It depends on who’s doing it. In North Dakota, they spell it with two k’s. In the Hidatsa language, her name means "Bird Woman" and it is "Tsakaka-wias." The Hidatsa were the ones who kidnapped Sacagawea as a young girl from her Shoshone homelands in the area of Lemhi Pass (Salmon, Idaho and Dillon, Montana). At the time of Lewis and Clark, the Hidatsas lived with the Mandan Indians in the Knife River Indian Villages, northwest of Bismarck, North Dakota. Today, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara live together on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the northwestern corner of North Dakota, and are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, or MHA Nation.  New Town, the headquarters town for the reservation, is located on Lake Sakakawea. The annual New Town Pow Wow takes place on the second weekend in August. This photo was taken at the 14th Lewis and Clark National Signature Event, hosted by the Three Affiliated Tribes in August , 2006.

New Town’s Reunion Bay is the place where all the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition came together, after they split up to explore Montana on their return journey during the summer of 1806. This photo shows members of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles reenacting the journey at the New Town Signature Event. The expedition used dugout canoes joined together for traveling. This was the type of canoe they were making at Park City, Montana on the Yellowstone River, when the Crow Indians stole their horses.

 Accomodations at New Town are available at the 4 Bears Casino (motel and RV Park) and local motels. The Three Tribes Museum is located near the casino. Other attractions include Lewis & Clark Jet Boat rides, golfing, hiking, biking and horseback riding, fishing and hunting. Lodging includes cabins, ranch vacations, motels, RV and tent campgrounds in New Town and the surrounding area on the reservation.

To return to the matter of Sakakawea/Sacajawea/Sacagawea. The Shoshone spelling is "Sacajawea"  with a "j"; the name means "Boat Launcher"  in the Shoshone language. Two interpretive centers spell it with a "j": the Sacajewea Interpretive, Cultural and Education Center in Salmon, Idaho and the Sacajawea Interpretive Center in Pasco, Washington.  However, the most accepted spelling is "Sacagawea"  with a "g" which has been the choice of almost all contemporary writers and journal editors. William Clark spelled her name as "Sah-kah-gar-we-a" when the expedition departed from Fort Mandan on April 7, 1805; and as "Se car ja we au Dead" in noting the fate of expedition members in a journal entry made  sometime between 1825-28. 

Read more about Sacagawea and the New Town area in my Lewis and Clark Road Trips book. In the next blog, Best Books on Sacagawea, I recommend two books on Sacagawea for adults among my "Top 50 Lewis and Clark Books" and two books on Sacagawea written for young readers available through our Amazon Associate bookstore.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/04/2006 at 02:32 PM

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Signing at the Signature Rock, Pompey’s Pillar near Billings, Montana

Pompey’s Pillar was named by William Clark for Sacagawea’s little boy, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who was called "Pomp" or "Pompey."  The toddler, who was born on February 11, 1805 at Fort Mandan near Bismarck, North Dakota, got a giant graffiti rock, a distinctive outcropping about 150 feet high, named after him when he was 17 months old. William Clark climbed to near the top of the rock, carved "William Clark  July 25 1806" in the soft sandstone, and named it "Pompey’s Tower." The editor of his published journal, Nicholas Biddle, renamed  it "Pompey’s Pillar." Located near a natural crossing of the Yellowstone River, the Crown Indians called the butte, Iishbiiammaache, or "the place where the mountain lion dwelled." For centuries Native Americans made hundreds of their own carvings (petroglyphs) and paintings (pictographs) on the rock. 

I signed Lewis and Clark Road Trips books in the Stephen A Ambrose Authors Tent  in 106 degree heat at Pompey’s Pillar. Despite the heat over 25,000 people attended the the 13th Lewis and Clark National Signature Event which was held 30 miles east of Billings, Montana in late July, 2006.  

 Peyton "Bud" Clark, the great, great, great grandson of William Clark reenacted his ancestor’s carving of his name and date on an outdoor stage at Pompey’s Pillar in that terrible heat, but he’s as tough as William Clark and got it done. Bud  has shown all the leadership skills, endurance and enjoyment of people, adventure, and the great outdoors that William Clark had. His participation in the bicentennial observances as the leader of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles has been one of the most important and lasting memories of these special years.

 Not to worry about climbing  the boardwalk if you are visiting. There is a brand new Visitor Center, which was dedicated at the Signature Event, where you can enjoy a view of the Pillar in comfort and use a telescope to get a close up view. The Visitor Center is open from the last weekend in May to the first weekend in September. There is year round access to the rock itself. It’s just a coincidence that this was called a "Signature Event" as this was the name given to all fifteen places around the country who hosted National Signature Events in the bicentennial years.

Pompey’s Pillar became a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and a National Historic Monument in 2001. William Clark’s signature today is enclosed in a protective glass frame, first put there by the local family who leased the land in the 1950’s and later bought it to preserve this remarkable piece of history. Read about Don and Stella Foote on the web’s great Lewis and Clark history website, Discovering Lewis & Clark.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/01/2006 at 12:19 PM

BOOKS/AUTHORS • Lewis and Clark Trail • Montana • TRAVEL • NATIVE AMERICAN • Sacagawea • National Historic Landmark/ Monument • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Digg It • Add to del.icio.us