Charles M. Russell and his painting of Lewis & Clark … · Charles M. Russell and his painting of...

The Official Publication of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc. August 2000 Volume 26, No. 3

Charles M. Russelland his painting

of Lewis & Clark at Ross’s Hole

Wapiti George Drouillard Matches

� �

1�August 2000 We Proceeded On

On the coverThis detail from Charles M. Russell’s great mural of Lewis and Clark meeting theFlathead Indians at Ross’s Hole, Montana, shows the painting’s central figures.For the story behind the mural, see the story starting on page 18; the painting inits entirety appears on pages 20-21. Courtesy Montana Historical Society.

Contents

Ross’s Hole, p. 18

Wapiti, p. 26

Letters: Gravesites, fiction reviews, Seaman’s fate 2

From the Bicentennial Council: Kansas City report 4

From the Directors: Past and future 5

Trail Notes: Spreading the “R” word 6

From the Library: In the tradition of Franklin and Jefferson 7

“A Man of Much Merit” 8George Drouillard went down fighting in the country he lovedBy James J. Holmberg

Matches and Magic 13Just how did the Corps of Discovery make fire?By Robert R. Hunt

Lewis and Clark at Ross’s Hole 18The story behind Charles M. Russell’s paintingBy Patricia M. Burnham

Wapiti 26The ubiquitous American elk filled bellies and journalsBy Ken Walcheck

Reviews 33Sign-Talker; Riversong; Travelin’ the Lewis and Clark Trail;Two travel guides to the Trail

News and miscellany 38Briefings: Fort Mandan restoration, Hubbard Award,genealogy certificate, Yankton gathering, Web updates.Passages: George Tweney, Miliyah Poog; Lewis bicentennial bust;Chapter News: Idaho license plate, Discovery keelboat

Dispatches 40The healing moment: Rededicating Pompey’s gravesiteBy Michelle Bussard

Drouillard, p. 8

2 �We Proceeded On August 2000

August 2000 • Volume 26, Number 3

We Proceeded On is the official publication ofthe Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Founda-tion, Inc. Its name derives from a phrase thatappears repeatedly in the collective journalsof the expedition. 2000.

E. G. Chuinard, M.D., Founder

ISSN 02275-6706

EditorJ. I. Merritt51 N. Main StreetPennington, NJ [email protected]

Art DirectionMargaret Davis DesignPrinceton, New Jersey

Printed by Advanced Litho PrintingGreat Falls, Montana

Editorial Board

Gary E. Moulton, Leader Lincoln, Nebraska

Robert C. CarrikerSpokane, Washington

Robert K. Doerk, Jr.Cheyenne, Wyoming

Robert R. HuntSeattle, Washington

Membership InformationMembership in the Lewis and Clark TrailHeritage Foundation, Inc. is open to the pub-lic. Information and applications are availableby writing Membership Coordinator; Lewisand Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc.;P.O. Box 3434; Great Falls, MT 59403.

We Proceeded On, the quarterly magazine ofthe Foundation, is mailed to current membersin February, May, August, and November.

Annual Membership Categories

Student $20Individual/Library/Nonprofit $30Family/International/Business $45Heritage Club $50Explorer Club $100Jefferson Club $250Discovery Club $500Expedition Club $1,000Leadership Club $2,500

The Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Founda-tion, Inc. is a tax-exempt nonprofit corpora-tion. Individual membership dues are not taxdeductible. The portion of premium dues over$30 is tax deductible.

Letters

Corps of Discovery gravesites

I enjoyed Bob Moore’s article “Corps ofDiscovery Gravesites” in the May WPO butwas disappointed and surprised that it didnot include a photograph of the grave ofPatrick Gass, my great-great grandfather. Ilive only seven miles from Wellsburg, WestVirginia, where he is buried and enclose apicture of his marker, in Brooke Cemetery.Troy Helmick of the Crimson Bluffs Chap-ter and I visited the gravesite on April 20.

EUGENE BASS PAINTER

Avella, Penn.

Although the “Toussaint Charbonneau”buried in St. Stephens Catholic Cemeteryin Richwoods, Missouri, is not the same per-son who was Jean Baptiste Charbonneau’sfather and an interpreter for Lewis andClark, I believe there is a connection be-tween him and Jean Baptiste.

When Jean Baptiste (Pompey) was ahunter for Bent’s Fort in 1844, he becameacquainted with a visitor, William Boggs, ason of the governor of Missouri, who wroteabout him in his travel notes. Boggs alsowrote, “Another half-breed at the Fort was‘Tessou.’ His father was French and hismother an Indian. . . . ‘Tessou’ was in someway related to [Baptiste] Charbenau. Bothof them were very high strung, but Tessouwas quick and passionate. He fired a rifleacross the court of the Fort at the head ofthe large negro blacksmith, only missing hisskull about a quarter of an inch, because thenegro had been in a party that chivaried[chivvied: harassed] Tessou the evening be-

Another member of the Corps of Discov-ery with a known gravesite is FrançoisRivet, one of the boatmen who accompa-nied Lewis and Clark as far as the Mandanvillages. He is also the boatman who dancedon his hands to Pierre Cruzatte’s fiddle.Rivet is buried in the St. Paul Parish Cem-etery in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, ac-cording to Men of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition, by Charles G. Clarke. Rivet liesin the same cemetery as Phillipe Decre, whoappears to have briefly taken up with theexpedition during its ascent of the lowerMissouri but was never an official member.

RON LAYCOCK

Benson, Minn.

Painter (left) and Helmick at Gass’s grave

fore, and being a dangerous man, Capt. StVrain gave him an outfit and sent him awayfrom the Fort.” (Source: “The W. M. BoggsManuscript about Bent’s Fort,” ColoradoMagazine, No. 7, 1930, pp. 66-67.)

This incident throws light on anothermystery regarding Jean Baptiste, a suppo-sition that he had married a Cheyennewoman and abandoned her. AlexanderBarclay noted in his journal of December28, 1847, an encounter at Pueblo with amountain man who met “Rufine andCharbonneau’s child Louise at the Whirl-winds camp going down to Bents fort aloneand afoot.” (Source: William MarshallAnderson, The Rocky Mountain Journals,Dale L. Morgan and Eleanor Towles Har-ris, eds., 1967, p. 288. Barclay’s’ manuscriptis in the Bancroft Library.) Jean Baptiste hadleft Bent’s Fort in September 1846—morethan a year before this incident—to guideGeneral Stephen Watts Kearny’s army toCalifornia. No other mention of his havinga wife or child occurs in the literature con-cerning Jean Baptiste. From what we knowof the man, it was not in his character toabandon a family. But it is not difficult tobelieve that the hot-tempered Tessou [Tous-saint] would do so.

Is the man buried in Richwoods another,older son of Lewis and Clark’s interpreter?

MARION TINLING

Sacramento, Calif.

EDITOR’S NOTE: the writer has recently fin-ished a biography of Jean Baptiste Char-bonneau, which is scheduled for publica-tion next year by Mountain Press.


EDITOR’S NOTE: In the map that accompa-nied Moore’s article we left off the gravesiteof John Colter and misspelled WilliamClark’s name by adding on “e” to it. (We’rein good company: Thomas Jefferson spelledit that way, too.) In the map below we’vecorrected these errors and added Rivet’sgravesite.

Shields

Gass

ShannonFloydSacagawea?

Pompey

Willard

Bratton

Lewis

Clark

Frazier,Colter

Charbonneau?Pryor

Rivet

ME

G D

AV

IS

Fiction reviewsI am writing in response to John Stoner’sletter in the May WPO taking issue withJames Holmberg’s review of my novel TheMeriwether Lewis Murder.

First, I must thank Mr. Holmberg for aconscientious job, in which he caught sev-eral errors that slipped past the copyeditorand me. Should there be a second edition,these will certainly be corrected. I appreci-ate Mr. Holmberg’s attention to detail.

Second, and the real purpose of this let-ter, is to comment on Mr. Stoner’s remarks.It is purely a policy matter whether WPO

reviews fiction or restricts itself to factualaccounts of the Lewis and Clark saga. I findnothing to quarrel with in either case; it is amatter of the objectives of the Lewis andClark Trail Heritage Foundation and thedesires of its members. I am, however,amused at Mr. Stoner’s implication that I amamong writers making “a fast buck.” He isobviously unfamiliar with the economics offiction writing. Of more concern is his ref-erence to “someone’s weird assumptions.”From this I gather that he feels a fictionalwork necessarily represents the writer’sopinions about what really happened. Iwould like to reassure him that some of uscan make a distinction between fact and fic-tion. Had I wished to write the former, then,as the holder of a Ph.D. in anthropology I

would have employed a scholarly formatand restricted myself to historical data. In-stead, as the author of a series of novels fea-turing a fictional archaeologist who con-fronts historical mysteries (Burial Ground,Assassin’s Blood, Past Dying, and now TheMeriwether Lewis Murder), I gather whatfacts I can from published sources, placethem in a fictional format with a “What if?”premise, and clearly represent the result asfiction. When people ask my opinion aboutthe death of Meriwether Lewis, I state thatI do not know how it happened but thatmy understanding of the record leads meto believe suicide to be slightly more likelythan murder.

Perhaps Mr. Stoner opposes all histori-cal fiction. In that case, he has a number ofauthors and a formidable corpus of workto contend with, including Sir Walter Scott,Robert Graves, and Gore Vidal. Of course,Mr. Stoner is at liberty not to read histori-cal novels. I would like to think, however,that I have provided some entertainment toa few strangers, whether at the beach or onthe Lolo Trail, and that perhaps there mighteven be someone out there who picks upthe book and decides after reading it to findout more about the captains we all so muchadmire.

MALCOLM K. SHUMAN

Baton Rouge, La.

John L. Stoner’s letter begs a rebuttal.First, not all historical fiction is

“junk.” A serious historical novelist (thereis such a thing) spends as much time re-searching facts as a historian does, and hedevotes additional effort to recreating thecharacter of the story’s principals and theworld and time in which they acted.

Second, historians are not automaticallymore right than fiction authors. In fact,some writers are both novelists and profes-sional historians. Aspects of history that hadbeen left blank or lopsided by scores of his-torians have been corrected and fleshed outby good novelists. Russell Banks’s novelCloudsplitter brought Americans closer tothe true soul of John Brown than did anyof the works of a dozen historians. And thelate Patrick O’Brian lifted naval history sev-eral notches with his series of novels aboutthe Napoleonic wars at sea.

A few historians write well enough tocapture vast readership—Stephen Ambroseis our current example. But history teach-ers assign reputable historical novels assupplemental reading because they knowthat even their most history-impervious stu-dents might soak up some knowledge ifthey get caught up in a good story.

Finally, historical fiction will be writtenwhether Mr. Stoner approves or not, andwill become part of Lewis and Clark lore.Some novels will be valid, some far-fetched.Wouldn’t he rather see all the lore evalu-ated publicly by Lewis and Clark scholarsin WPO than simply flung out on the mar-ket, quality unjudged?

As a historical novelist and sometimehistorian, I seek to give truths and insights,and welcome any discussion they mightprovoke. Please keep critiquing it all: fact,fiction, and the indeterminables.

JAMES ALEXANDER THOM

Bloomington, Ill.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A review of Thom’s novelSign-Talker, about George Drouillard, ap-pears on page 33.

After reading Dean Norman’s response inthe May WPO to “Seaman’s Fate?,” James J.Holmberg’s article in the February WPO, Iwent to the vet’s to verify the size of a New-foundland dog. We seldom see one of themhere in the Piney Woods, and I doubt ifanyone living on the Natchez Trace in 1809had ever seen one. As I thought, the chartshowed the height as 26-28 inches andweight 110-150 pounds, compared to 25-28 inches and 150-170 pounds for a St. Ber-nard. Norman is right: a dog of that sizeand unusual breed tagging along with Lewiswould have been the subject of commentby observers at Ft. Pickering, where Lewislanded after his boat ride from St. Louis,and at every point along the Natchez Trace.Also, Mrs. Robert Grinder, who reportedon the demise of Lewis, offered several ver-

Seaman’s fate


sions of the death scene without ever men-tioning a dog. None of the many “local tra-ditions” in Tennessee—stories with incred-ible viability—refer to a dog guarding thegrave. Finally, because Lewis planned, upondeparting St. Louis, to travel by sea toWashington, it is highly unlikely that hewould have taken Seaman with him—as-suming the pet was in St. Louis.

On the other hand, if the dog did ac-company Lewis, Norman is correct inspeculating that its presence would supportthe contention that someone murderedLewis. It is ironic that Holmberg’s articleis opposite the obituary of Lewis and Clarkscholar Ruth Colter Frick, who doubtedthat Lewis killed himself and who uncov-ered ample evidence that Lewis was not fi-nancially insolvent at the time of his death.If Lewis was depressed, according to Frick,it was not over his financial future. At theend of his piece, Holmberg appropriatelyasserts that the manner of Lewis’s death is“one of history’s controversies.”

JOHN D. W. GUICE

Laurel, Miss.

Kansas City report: moving ahead

From the Bicentennial Council

There is a new membership campaign un-derway, and we want to include you! Weare pleased to offer renewing members thesame incentives as new members. When yourenew your membership this year, pleaseconsider joining at a higher club level. Whenyou renew, you are entitled to a premiumgift. Each club membership includes alllower-level gifts, plus:• Heritage Club ($50): logo bookmark• Explorer Club ($100): canvas book bag• Jefferson Club ($250): R. F. Morgan num-bered print• Discovery Club ($500): Makochie CD• Expedition Club ($1,000): GF SymphonyCD• Leadership Club ($2,500): Annual Meet-ing registration.

Thanks for your continuing support,and pass the word along! If questions, con-tact me at 406-454-1234; [email protected].

CARI M. KARNS

Membership Coordinator, LCTHFGreat Falls, Mont.

WPO welcomes letters. We may edit themfor length, accuracy, and clarity. Send themto us c/o Editor, WPO, 51 N. Main St.,Pennington, NJ 08534 (e-mail: [email protected]).

New membership campaign

ll Prepared for Action—Realizing the Vision” was thefitting theme of the National

Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council’sfifth national planning workshop. Heldin Kansas City, Missouri, in April, it at-tracted over 300 delegates who heardnearly 40 speakers representing theCouncil’s federal, state, tribal, educa-tion, conservation, national-event, andinstitutional partners. Their presenta-tions on missions, priorities, and ac-tions were synchronized to digital“powerpoint” pictorials provided byJana Prewitt of the Department ofInterior.

Breakout sessions featureda preview of the HistoryChannel’s forthcomingLewis and Clark docu-mentary, produced in co-operation with the Coun-cil’s partner American Riv-ers, and a report on thefirst multi-state awarenesssurvey of visitors to theLewis and Clark Trail.We learned there is ahigh degree of aware-ness of the Corps ofDiscovery but littleawareness of the bi-centennial itself. Thatshould change withdocumentaries andother planned feature films, coupledwith the Council’s national public-edu-cation campaign on trail stewardship.

In a luncheon address, speakerStephen Ambrose delighted us with thenews that he will chair the NationalLewis and Clark Bicentennial Honor-ary Council of Advisors—and herocked the house by offering to con-tribute $1 million for every $1 millionraised or donated by the other mem-bers of the Council of Advisors, withproceeds to support trail stewardship,education, and tribal and commemora-tive events. The Council of Advisors issmall but growing and includes severalnotable individuals—watch for a na-

tional announcement soon. Also on thefund-raising front, the Council an-nounced that the Carlson MarketingGroup will implement its corporatesponsorship program, with a goal ofraising $10 million.

We were also pleased to hear fromAllen Pinkham, a Nez Perce elder whofills the Council’s first Tribal Liaisonposition, established in cooperationwith the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Acommitment to a second position based

out of the BIA’s South Dakota of-fice is in hand. Amy Mossett of the

Three Affiliated Tribes ofFort Berthold spoke aboutthe newly formed Circleof Tribal Advisors, whichshe chairs. The Circle al-ready has a dozen tribalrepresentatives and heldits first meeting while inKansas City.

The workshop alsoaddressed progress ofthe CongressionalCaucus on the Lewisand Clark Expedi-tion. RepresentativeIke Skelton of Mis-souri offered histhoughts on the re-sponsibilities we allshare to commemo-rate the bicentennial.

The Council’s project inventory, pre-sented to Congress on March 1, was re-viewed. The Caucus has asked for a sec-ond round and further articulation ofnational project priorities, which wewill deliver in January.

Next year’s workshop will be heldApril 24-27 in Omaha. It’s a not-to-be-missed event. The Council will an-nounce the addition to the calendar ofnational signature events, a master planfor the bicentennial, congressionalfunding priorities, and the full scope ofour corporate sponsorship, product,and public education programs.

—David BorlaugMichelle Bussard

“A

A highlight of the KC meeting was theApril 26 dedication of a bronze statue byEugene Daub on a hill overlooking theMissouri climbed by Lewis and Clark onSeptember 15, 1806. The heroic-sizesculpture depicts the captains, Saca-gawea and Pompey, York, and Seaman.

PH

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.I. M

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ADVENTURECONNECTIONS

1/3rd square

L&C TRAILADVENTURES

1/3rd square

he year has passed quickly,and what a year it has been! I

will remember my presidency andyears of board service with gratitude topast presidents Bill Sherman, Don Nell,Strode Hinds, John Montague, BobGatten, Jim Peterson, and Sid Huggins.As my own term draws to a close, Ilook forward to our annual meeting inDillon and the opportunity to gatherwith old and new members of the Lewisand Clark family.

Some of the major accomplishmentsof the last year will light the way to ourfuture. The Trail Stewardship Project,undertaken with the National Lewisand Clark Bicentennial Council, will beat the core of our bicentennial obser-vance, reminding us of our great re-sponsibility to the nation’s historic,cultural, and natural resources. I think,too, of the Tribal Council, an out-growth of the “listening sessions”sponsored by the National Park Serviceto involve the tribes encountered by theCorps of Discovery. The Tribal Coun-cil will develop the Lewis and Clarkstory from the point of view of NativeAmericans—a story, in part, of whatthose tribes have lost in the wake ofLewis and Clark. As Dark Rain Thom,the chairwoman of our Tribal LiaisonsCommittee, has noted, “at this stage ofAmerican development . . . the publiccitizenry is mature enough and emo-tionally capable of handling . . . thewhole truth of the Expedition.”

I also reflect on the Foundation andhow it has grown since I joined it yearsago. Goals discussed but barely definedare now reality: a strategic plan and or-ganizational visioning process, a full-time staff, a national bicentennial coun-cil. Now we are in a new millenniumand soon will celebrate the 200th anni-versary of the Lewis and Clark adven-ture. The world is changing, and theFoundation will continue to evolve tomeet the challenges of tomorrow. It’sbeen a privilege to share in the journey.

—Cynthia OrlandoPresident, LCTHF

From the Directors

Past and future

T


Trail Notes

Trail stewardship: spreading the “R” wordor those of us who love the

Lewis and Clark National His-toric Trail and all its stories, trail

stewardship could be genetic, somethingthat’s a part of who we are today. I canfeel what trail stewardship means, butwhen putting feelings into words I canget caught in a little windy wandering.

So let’s start simply, with one word:respect. I treat the story of the Corpsof Discovery with respect becauseit shows mankind at its best andworst. It is real.

If I respect the story, I re-spect the people who tookpart, whether white, black, orred—all of the cultures andraces that make up the story. Irespect the descendants of thosewho took part in the greatest adventureof the 19th century because they are myneighbors and friends, and, at the veryleast, they are fellow human beings andthe story is a common thread for us all.

But what about the trail itself, the riv-ers, the sky, the land? Isn’t trail steward-ship about care of the environment andof the physical trail and the few bits ofevidence that tell us, “Lewis and ClarkStopped Here”? Absolutely. And with afoundation of respect, it becomes a simplematter, a logical conclusion, and a natu-ral act for me to tread lightly on the frag-ile landscape.

It’s only natural for me to listen withrespect to storytellers along the trail, fol-low tribal protocols and campground andforest rules, use trash bins, and take onlypictures and leave only footprints.

It’s only natural for me to be in awe ofthe Missouri River while seated in a ca-noe drifting past the White Cliffs; natu-ral for me to talk with fellow visitorsalong the trail in Missouri; or to sitaround the campfire at Fort Mandanreading the expedition journals.

Trail Stewardship ProjectAs the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial ap-proaches, it becomes my responsibility asa trail lover to share with the rest of theworld my feelings about respect for thetrail. It’s your responsibility, too, and theLewis and Clark Trail Heritage Founda-tion and the National Lewis and ClarkBicentennial Council set up the TrailStewardship Project so we can spread the

“R” word. At the same time, we’ll helpensure that, during the bicentennial, trailvisitors have a rewarding experience andpossibly the vacation of a lifetime.

The Trail Stewardship Project includespartnerships with Foundation chapters;the Stephen Ambrose family; the Bureauof Indian Affairs and tribal nations alongthe trail; the National Geographic Soci-

ety; the National Park Service, theBureau of Land Management, the

U.S. Forest Service, and otherfederal agencies; trail states; lo-cal communities; private land-owner associations; and trailvisitors.

Gathering information isour immediate priority. Federal

agencies meet in Washington, D.C.,each month to plan for the bicentennial,and a separate field group of federal agen-cies meets quarterly out on the trail toshare information on agency and depart-ment projects. Both the Foundation andthe Bicentennial Council are representedat the agency meetings.

People are compiling informationabout the expedition route, present juris-diction, land ownership patterns, historicsites, biodiversity, tribal protocols, visi-tor facilities, and intersections betweenthe trail and private, sacred, and environ-mentally sensitive areas.

Partners at work on the Trail Steward-ship Project are trying to estimate howmany people will visit the trail during theBicentennial years 2003-06. They’re look-ing for significant trail sites, facilitatingprotective measures on public and privatelands, and developing visitor-manage-ment plans.

Inventorying private landsLCTHF chapter members will be start-ing one of the biggest and most impor-tant elements of the Trail StewardshipProject late this summer: an inventory ofprivate lands along the 3,700-mile trail.

By initiating the inventory at agrassroots chapter level, we’ll be able totalk to friends, neighbors, and relativesalong the trail who own the expeditioncampsites and other significant sites alongthe trail. What do those property ownersknow about the sites—the history—theyown? What are they expecting in termsof numbers of bicentennial visitors? Do

F they want visitors at all? Do they needassistance preserving trail sites on theirland? What can the Foundation and itschapters do to help?

The private lands inventory kicks offat the LCTHF annual meeting in Dillon,Montana, this month. The presidents oflocal chapters will return home with a“how-to” workbook, a database, and theenthusiasm to tackle this project. By nextspring, we’ll have a good idea of whoowns what along the Lewis and ClarkNational Historic Trail and a handle onlandowner sensitivities.

—Jeffrey OlsonTrail Coordinator

You can learn more about trail stewardshipand share information about chapterprojects by contacting Trail CoordinatorJeffrey Olson at P.O. Box 2376 Bismarck,ND 58502 ([email protected]; tele-phone 701-258-1960 or 701-258-1809). Heasks that chapters put him on their newslet-ter mailing lists and send him their Web siteaddresses.

he Foundation will hold its 2001meeting next August 5-8 in Pierre,

South Dakota.Meeting facilities: Ramkota Inn

Rivercentre, 920 W. Sioux, Pierre, SD57501; 1-800-528-1234 (151 rooms).

Lodging facilities within easy walkingdistance: Kelly Inn, 713 W. Sioux, Pierre,SD 57501 (1 block); 605-224-4140, 1-800-635-3559 (47 rooms). • Governor’s Inn,700 W. Sioux, Pierre, SD 57501 (1+blocks); 605-224-4200, 1-800-341-8000(82 rooms). • Days Inn, 520 W. Sioux,Pierre, SD 57501; 605-224-0411, 1-800-329-7466 (79 rooms). • Super 8 Motel, 320W. Sioux, Pierre, SD 57501 (4 blocks);605-224-1617, 1-800-800-8000 (78rooms). • Comfort Inn, 410 W. Sioux,Pierre, SD 57501 (5 blocks); 605-224-0377, 1-800-221-222 (60 rooms). •Hedman’s Iron Horse Inn, 205 W. Pleas-ant, Pierre, SD 57501 (7+ blocks); 605-224-5981 (54 rooms). • Kings Inn, 220 S.Pierre, Pierre, SD 57501 (9 blocks); 605-224-5951, 1-800-528-1234 (104 rooms—Best Western). ■

Meet me in Pierre

T


he library in America can betraced to Benjamin Franklin and

his colleagues, who regularly debatedtopics such as religion, politics, and medi-cine. Their scholarly discussions ledFranklin in 1731 to form the first sub-scription library in America. Fifty sub-scribers invested 40 shillings each andpaid 10 shillings a year to purchase books.

In 1800, President John Adams spent$5,000 to purchase 740 books and threemaps for the newly created Library ofCongress. The library grew under hissuccessor, Thomas Jefferson. After thecollection was destroyed in a fire set bythe British during the War of 1812,Jefferson, by then retired to Monticello,sold his personal library—6,487 books—to Congress to replace the 3,000 volumeslost in the fire.

As President, Jefferson—along withDr. Benjamin Rush, Benjamin SmithBarton, and others—helped Lewis andClark assemble the traveling library theytook to the Pacific and back. Books byBarton, Patrick Kelly, Rush, RichardKirwan, and Alexander MacKenzie pro-vided the explorers with a workingknowledge of botany, mineralogy, navi-gation, and astronomy. As the late histo-rian Donald Jackson has noted, “Con-ceivably the expedition could have beenconducted without a single book, but itwould have been much more difficult andcertainly far less informative.”

Like Franklin, Jefferson, and the ex-plorers themselves, members of the Lewis

and Clark Trail Heritage Foundationhave the opportunity to build and fos-ter a library of their own. Thanks togenerous gifts from Robert Betts, Rob-ert Taylor, Don Nell, and others, theFoundation’s library, located in the Wil-liam P. Sherman Room of the Lewis andClark Interpretive Center in GreatFalls, Montana, has begun to take shapeand grow. Foundation members can aidin its next phase of development byjoining the Friends of the Lewis andClark Trail Heritage Foundation Library.

Members of the Friends are able towork directly with the library’s staff inhelping to establish its scholarly re-sources. They are also invited to partici-pate in a variety of activities, includingdiscussions, lectures, and quarterly ex-hibits which make use of the library’smaterials to improve our understandingof the expedition and its history.

If you are interested in learning moreabout the Friends of the Lewis and ClarkTrail Heritage Foundation Library, lookfor more detailed information at theLCTHF annual meeting in Dillon or con-tact the library at 406-761-3950([email protected]). Don’t missthis opportunity to help shape this cen-ter for discussion, learning, and scholarlyenrichment. As Benjamin Franklin statedsome 275 years ago, Communiter Bonaprofundere Deum est (“To pour forthbenefits for the common good is divine”).

—Doug EricksonArchives Committee, LCTHF

From the Library

In the tradition of Franklin and Jefferson

T

eremy Skinner, a native of GoldBeach, Oregon, and a 2000 gradu-

ate of Lewis and Clark College, is theFoundation’s new librarian.

Skinner’s office is in the William P.Sherman Room of the Lewis and ClarkInterpretive Center in Great Falls. Hisduties include assisting researchers, cata-loguing materials, organizing volunteersand library supporters, and building a da-tabase and a Web site that will allow thelibrary’s holdings to be searched online.

Skinner earned a B.A. in history, witha focus on the American West. As a stu-dent at Lewis and Clark College hegained a first-hand knowledge of Lewis

and Clark materials working in the ar-chives and special collections of thecollege’s Aubrey Watzek Library, whichholds one of the world’s best collectionsof books relating to the Lewis and ClarkExpedition. Its Lewis and Clark holdingsinclude collections formerly owned byFoundation members Eldon G. Chui-nard, Irving Anderson, and RogerWendlick. He has also worked in the ar-chives of Portland’s Pioneer CourthouseSquare and the Smithsonian Institution.

Skinner’s scholarly interests in Lewisand Clark include the impact of railroadsin popularizing the explorers’ story in thelate 19th century. ■

JSkinner joins Foundation staff as librarian

APPRECIATED STOCKS:POTENTIAL GOLD MINE?

If you own appreciated stocks and wantto get more income from them thanthey provide in dividends, avoid asignificant income-tax bite, and make acharitable gift to the Lewis and ClarkTrail Heritage Foundation, thenconsider a charitable gift annuity.

A charitable gift annuity provides aseries of fixed payments by a charity toan annuitant for the remainder of his orher life in exchange for a lump-sum gift.The amount of payout is determined bythe size of the gift, whether the annuityis payable to a single life only or to asecond party after the death of the first(to a surviving spouse, for example), theage of the annuitant(s) at the date of thegift, and whether the payout beginsimmediately or later.

A charitable gift annuity can provide upto three tax benefits. First, there is acharitable gift deduction computedaccording to IRS rules. Second, duringthe payout period, part of the donor’sannual income is excluded from taxableincome. A third benefit results when agift annuity is paid for with appreciatedstocks, which allows for a partialforgiveness of capital gains and spreadsthe tax over the donor’s lifetime.

A charitable gift annuity may bepurchased for and given to anotherperson—a relative, perhaps, whoseincome needs supplementing.

I’m happy to tell you more about thistax-advantaged transaction. Inquirieswill be treated in strict confidence.

BOB DOERK

Planned Giving Committee, LCTHFP.O. Box 715Fort Benton, MT 594421-406-622-5874


With the exception of Meriwether Lewis andWilliam Clark themselves, perhaps noother member of the Corps of Discovery

was more critical to the success of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition than George Drouillard. Hired as a civilianinterpreter (chiefly for his fluency in Indian sign lan-guage) and a hunter, Drouillard established his impor-tance to the expedition early on by traveling to Ten-nessee from Fort Massac and escorting the Army re-cruits who had missed the intended rendezvous at thefort to the corps’s winter quarters. Drouillard arrivedwith them at Camp Dubois on December 22 and threedays later officially signed on with the expedition—un-doubtedly one of the best Christmas presents Lewisand Clark ever received.1 After the expedition, Lewisgave Drouillard the highest praise. Writing to Secre-tary of War Henry Dearborn on January 15, 1807, heremarked of him:

A man of much merit; he has been peculiarly usefullfrom his knowledge of the common language of ges-ticulation, and his uncommon skill as a hunter andwoodsman; those several duties he performed ingood faith, and with an ardor which deserves thehighest commendation. It was his fate also to haveencountered, on various occasions, with either Cap-tain Clark or myself, all the most dangerous and try-ing scenes of the voyage, in which he uniformlyacquited himself with honor.2

After the expedition, Drouillard remained in the West.As it had done with many of the men of the Corps ofDiscovery, the region’s untamed wilderness had cast itsspell on him. Over the next four years he participated infur-trading ventures on the upper Missouri andYellowstone rivers. It was on one of these, in 1810, thatthis veteran of many of the “most dangerous and tryingscenes” of the Lewis and Clark Expedition met his death.

The deaths of many trappers and traders went unre-corded. Often, surviving records state that someone hadbeen killed by Indians but fail to give the victim’s name.Perhaps this was the fate of Joseph Field, PierreCruzatte, John Thompson, and a few other membersof the Corps of Discovery listed as dead by WilliamClark in the 1820s. We know much more about the fateof George Drouillard, whose death was reported in theLouisiana Gazette, recorded in the memoir of fellowtrapper-trader Thomas James, and remembered over 60years later by Pierre Menard, Jr., the son of one of themen who accompanied Drouillard on his last expedi-tion into the mountains.

U P T H E M I S S O U R I W I T H L I S A

In the spring of 1807, six months after the Corps ofDiscovery’s return to civilization, St. Louis entrepre-neur Manuel Lisa enlisted Drouillard in his enterprise

“A MAN OF MUCH MERIT”

BY JAMES J. HOLMBERG

George Drouillard, the Corps of Discovery’sace hunter and interpreter, went down fighting

in the country he loved


to establish a trading post deep in Indian country.Drouillard and two other members of the Lewis andClark Expedition, John Potts and Peter Wiser, wereamong the 42 men in the party Lisa led up the Mis-souri; a fourth member of the corps, John Colter, whowas returning to St. Louis after a winter in the moun-tains, joined them en route. They ascended to theriver’s junction with the Yellowstone, then went upthe Yellowstone and late in the fall built Fort Lisa atits junction with the Bighorn River.

Lisa and most of his party, including Drouillard, re-turned to St. Louis the following August. In June 1809,Lisa and Drouillard—now a limited partner—again as-cended the Missouri with a party of trappers. Whilesome of the party remained at a fort built by Lisa abovethe Hidatsa village at Knife River, Drouillard and oth-ers pushed up the Yellowstone to Fort Lisa to winterthere again. In late March 1810, one of Lisa’s primarypartners, Pierre Menard, led a party of 32 trappers—including Drouillard and Colter—west up the Yellow-stone, across Bozeman Pass, and down the GallatinRiver to the Three Forks.

A P O S T AT T H E T H R E E F O R K S

Ever since Lewis and Clark’s return nearly four yearsbefore and their reports of the rich beaver grounds in

the region of the Three Forks, Lisa had wanted to es-tablish a permanent post there. Unfortunately, the ThreeForks was in country controlled by the Blackfeet Indi-ans. By the time Menard’s party arrived at the ThreeForks in the spring of 1810, if not before, the Blackfeethad become implacably hostile toward Americans. Thereasons for their attitude are debated. In part it mayhave stemmed from an incident on Two Medicine Riverin July 1806, when a party led by Lewis and includingDrouillard had fought with a party of Blackfeet andkilled two warriors. But mainly the Blackfeet’s trucu-lence was rooted in intertribal conflict. Lewis and Clarkhad promised to provide guns to the Shoshones,Flatheads, and other tribes at war with the Blackfeet,and Lisa may have unwittingly exacerbated their dis-trust of Americans by trading with their enemies theCrows while wintering on the Yellowstone in 1807-08.

John Colter had firsthand knowledge about just howunfriendly the Blackfeet could be. In 1808, Lisa haddispatched him across Bozeman Pass to parlay withthem at the Three Forks. While descending the Gallatin,he had fallen in with a band of Crows and Flatheads,who were soon attacked by Blackfeet. Colter foughtagainst the Blackfeet and was wounded in the leg. Laterin 1808, Colter and John Potts, while trapping on thelower Jefferson, were surrounded by Blackfeet. They

George Drouillard (cradling rifle) and John Shields look onas the Shoshones greet Lewis near Lemhi Pass on August 13, 1805.

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killed Potts and captured Colter. The Blackfeetstripped Colter and just for sport told him to run, withthe idea of giving him a short head-start before catch-ing and killing him. So Colter ran for his life—andinto legend, killing one of his pursuers and escapingthe rest by diving into the Jefferson and hiding undera pile of driftwood.3

Despite Colter’s troubles with the Blackfeet, Lisa hadheld fast to his dream of building a trading post at theThree Forks. Menard and his party reached the forkson April 3 without incident and immediately began con-structing a fort. As soon as a defensible structure waserected, groups of trappers began going out from it insearch of beaver. One group of 18 ventured some 40miles up the Jefferson while another group of four trav-eled down the Missouri. Ten men, including Menard,remained behind to work on the fort.4

It was not long before the Blackfeet made their pres-ence known. On April 12, they attacked the trapperson the Jefferson. The majority of men had scattered intosmall groups in order to hunt while six men set aboutestablishing the party’s camp. The Blackfeet swept downupon the men at the camp and killed five of them; the

rest made their way back to the fort. This incidentproved the last straw for Colter. Convinced his luckmust surely be used up, he vowed to quit the countryand never return. He did just that, leaving within 10days and making his way back to Missouri, where hemarried and settled on a farm.5

Not so Drouillard. He was determined to best theBlackfeet in their own country. Even if a peace couldnot be negotiated with them, he would continue totrap the plentiful beaver. A few weeks passed and noIndians were seen, so the men again began venturingout of the fort at the Three Forks. In early May,Menard sent a party of 21 men, including Drouillard,up the Jefferson to trap. As was customary, they splitinto smaller groups during the day to more effectivelyrun their traps, and in the evening they returned tocamp. Drouillard apparently was very successful andtaunted the others that no Indians were going to in-timidate him and keep him from taking all the beaverhe could. Emboldened by Drouillard’s success, twoDelaware Indians with the party accompanied him onemorning. It would be their last.6

Contrary to that often nameless and forgotten death

Blackfeet warriors assessing Fort Piegan, Manuel Lisa’s post at the Three Forks and George Drouillard’s last home

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that was the fate of so many trappers, George Drouil-lard’s was recorded in some detail. When some of theparty returned to St. Louis that summer, the LouisianaGazette obtained an interview with Pierre Menard. Inits edition of July 26, 1810, the paper presented hisaccount of the fur brigade’s difficulties with theBlackfeet:

A few days ago, Mr. Menard, with some of thegentlemen attached to the Missouri Fur Companyarrived here from their Fort at the head waters ofthe Missouri, by whom we learn that they had ex-perienced considerable opposition from theBlackfeet Indians; this adverse feeling arose from thejealousy prevalent among all savage (and some civi-lized) nations of those who trade with their enemies.The Crows and Blackfeet are almost continually atwar, the Company detached a party to trade withthe latter [former], this gave offence to the Blackfeet,who had not the same opportunity of procuringArms, &c. the Hudson Bay Factory being severaldays journey from their hunting grounds and withwhom they cannot trade with equal advantage.

A hunting party which had been detached fromthe Fort to the forks of the Jefferson river, were at-tacked in the neighborhood of their encampment onthe 12th of April, by a strong party of Blackfeet,whom they kept at bay for some time, but we aresorry to say unavailingly, as the Indians were toonumerous; the party consisted of 14 or 15, of whom5 were killed, say Hull, Cheeks, Ayres, Rucker andFreehearty: Messrs. Vallé, Immel and companionsescaped, and carried the unpleasant tidings to theFort, but with the loss of Tents, Arms, Traps, &c.

Early in May, George Druilard accompanied bysome Delawares, who were in the employ of thecompany, went out to hunt, contrary to the wishesof the rest of the party, who were confident the In-dians were in motion round them, and that from ahostile disposition they had already shewn, it wouldbe attended with danger, their presages were too true,he had not proceeded more than two miles from thecamp before he was attacked by a party in ambush,by whom himself and two of his men were literallycut to pieces. It appears from circumstances thatDruilard made a most obstinate resistance as he madea kind of breastwork of his horse, whom he made toturn in order to receive the enemy’s fire, his bul-wark, of course, soon failed and he became the nextvictim of their fury. It is lamentable that althoughthis happened within a short distance of relief, thefiring was not heard so as to afford it, in consequenceof a high wind which prevailed at the time.7

cember 13, 1871, he responded to a query by historian-collector Lyman Draper concerning people associatedwith the early West, including Drouillard. Menard Jr.’sversion both coincides and conflicts with his father’s.He recalled that Drouillard was indeed cut to pieces bythe Blackfeet but that the other trappers were not; heidentified the latter as four Shawnees, in contrast to con-temporary accounts describing them as two Delawares.Menard Jr. supposed that the Blackfeet dismemberedDrouillard out of special anger toward him—Drouillardhad encouraged the others to trap, and in Menard’s view,they also wanted to make him a grisly example of whatother Americans could expect if they stayed in Blackfeetcountry.8 There is also the possibility that they recog-nized him as one of Lewis’s men involved in the killingof two Blackfeet on Two Medicine River four yearsearlier.

A third version of the story comes from ThomasJames. His account of this and other western adven-tures, entitled Three Years Among the Indians andMexicans, was published in 1846. James’s account ofthe events of April and May of 1810 differs in somerespects from Menard Sr.’s in the Louisiana Gazette butoffers a great deal more detail. Recalling the events 36years after they occurred, James may have mis-remembered or embellished some of the facts, but hisreport is consistent with Menard’s, and most likely it isbasically reliable. In his biography of Drouillard, M.O. Skarsten depends heavily on James for details of hissubject’s death. Here is James’s account:

Sixty-one years later, the memory of Drouillard’sdeath remained with Menard’s son Pierre, Jr. On De-

The Indians, we thought, kept the game awayfrom the vicinity of the Fort. Thus we passed thetime till the month of May, when a party of twenty-one, of whom I was one, determined to go up theJefferson River to trap. By keeping together wehoped to repel any attack of the savages. We soonfound the trapping in such numbers not very prof-itable, and changed our plan by separating in com-panies of four, of whom, two men would trap whiletwo watched the camp. In this manner we were en-gaged until the fear of the Indians began to wear offand we became more venturous. One of our com-pany, a Shawnee half-breed named Druyer, the prin-cipal hunter of Lewis & Clark’s party, went up theriver one day and set his traps about a mile from thecamp. In the morning he returned alone and broughtback six beavers. I warned him of his danger. “I amtoo much of an Indian to be caught by Indians,”said he. On the next day he repeated the adventureand returned with the product of his traps, saying,“this is the way to catch beaver.” On the third morn-


ing he started again up the river to examine his traps,when we advised him to wait for the whole party,which was about moving further up the stream, andat the same time two other Shawnees left us againstour advice, to kill deer.9

In due course the party headed up the river. Theyhad not gone very far when they encountered the twohunters, and then a bit further on Drouillard. Jamesdescribed the scene of battle:

We started forward in company, and soon foundthe dead bodies of the last mentioned hunters,pierced with lances, arrows and bullets and lying neareach other. Further on, about one hundred and fiftyyards, Druyer and his horse lay dead, the formermangled in a horrible manner; his head was cut off,his entrails torn out and his body hacked to pieces.We saw from the marks on the ground that he musthave fought in a circle on horseback, and probablykilled some of his enemies, being a brave man, andwell armed with a rifle, pistol, knife and tomahawk.We pursued the trail of the Indians till night, with-out overtaking them, and then returned, having bur-ied our dead, with saddened hearts to Fort.10

Thus ended the life of one of the most impor-tant members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Whatfurther role George Drouillard might have played inthe opening of the West will never be known. It is pos-sible that he would have assumed a place beside thosetrappers and traders whom history records as the mostfamous of the mountain men. Instead, it was his fate tolie in an unknown grave along the Jefferson River, inthe country in which he had cast his fate; one of theearly casualties in the opening of the American West.11

Foundation member Jim Holmberg is the curator of specialcollections at the Filson Club Historical Society, in Louisville,Kentucky.

1Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Ex-pedition, 13 volumes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1983-2000), Vol. 2, pp. 85, 139-42.2Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expeditionwith Related Documents, 1783-1854, second edition, 2 volumes(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), Vol. 1, p. 368. In aletter to historian-collector Lyman Draper in 1867, Corps of Dis-covery member Patrick Gass described Drouillard as being a halfIndian, about five feet 10 inches in height, and an excellent hunter.Gass also reported that they left Drouillard in St. Louis in 1806when he and some other members of the expedition headed east;in an earlier letter to Draper, however, he stated that he leftDrouillard at Kaskaskia and knew nothing of him since. Gassto Draper, December 1, 1866, and January 11, 1867, GeorgeRogers Clark Papers, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical So-

ciety of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin (microfilm edition atThe Filson Club Historical Society, Louisville, Ky.), 34J61-62.3M. O. Skarsten, George Drouillard: Hunter and Interpreter forLewis and Clark and Fur Trader, 1807-1810 (Glendale, Calif.:The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1964), pp. 301-04. Colter’s ownaccount of his famous run was recounted by him to Englishtraveler and naturalist John Bradbury in 1810. Bradbury’s re-telling of the story in his book Travels in the Interior of Americain the Years 1809, 1810, and 1811 preserved the details of it forposterity. See Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Trav-els, 1748-1846 (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company,1904), Vol. 5, pp. 44-47. For more on Colter and his role in Lisa’senterprise see Burton Harris, John Colter: His Years in the RockyMountains (Casper, Wy.: Big Horn Book Co., 1983; reprint oforiginal edition of 1952).4Skarsten, pp. 285-87, 297-98.5Skarsten, pp. 298-301; Thomas James, Three Years Among theIndians and Mexicans, introduction by A. P. Nasatir (Philadel-phia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1962), pp. 40-42; Moulton, Vol.2, p. 515.6Skarsten, pp. 305-08.7Louisiana Gazette, July 26, 1810.8Pierre Menard to Lyman Draper, December 13, 1871, DraperManuscripts, 4J175. Menard also makes the interesting, but ap-parently erroneous, statement that Drouillard was one-fourthDelaware (and thus apparently three-fourths French-Canadian).The greater amount of evidence indicates that he was halfShawnee and half French-Canadian. Menard also states thatDrouillard was well educated, further adding to the evidencethat he was literate.9James, pp. 45-46. General Thomas James’s memoir was firstpublished in 1846. It was a popular title and edited and reprintedby different editors and publishers over the years. Menard andJames differ as to the tribal affiliation of the two hunters whowere killed near Drouillard; Menard identifying them as Dela-wares and James as Shawnees. They also differ on whether theywere mutilated. The immediacy of Menard’s account must bebalanced with the fact that James apparently actually witnessedthe scene, even if it was recalled many years later.10James, p. 46. We can only speculate about where along theJefferson Drouillard and his companions were killed. Jamesstated that hunting parties had ventured 20 to 30 miles from thefort before the one intending to trap again set off up the Jeffersonin early May. Assuming that some of these earlier hunting par-ties had gone up the Jefferson, it can be guessed that the Maytrapping party would have gone farther up the river than 20miles, and perhaps further than 30. The party attacked in Aprilhad reportedly gone up the Jefferson some 40 miles. Unfortu-nately, James does not say how far up the river the May partyventured. A 20-to-50-mile estimate would place the site ofDrouillard’s death and grave anywhere between approximatelypresent-day Jefferson Island and the confluence of the Jeffersonand Beaverhead rivers.11For further reading on George Drouillard, see M. O. Skarsten,George Drouillard: Hunter and Interpreter for Lewis and Clarkand Fur Trader, 1807-1810; and a historical novel by JamesAlexander Thom, Sign-Talker: The Adventure of George Drouil-lard on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, published this year byBallantine Books and reviewed on page 33 in this issue of WPO.

NOTES


MATCHESAND MAGIC

Just how did the Corps of Discovery make fire?

BY ROBERT R. HUNT

Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compose your-selves about with sparks: walk in the light of yourfire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.”

—Isaiah 50:11

When the members of the Lewis andClark Expedition crossed thecontinent their lives were ruled by

the four ancient elements. Their journal entriestell us much about earth (the landscape itself,and the provider of food and shelter), air(weather), and water (rivers, rain, and snow),but very little about fire.

Yet fire was an essential part of the explor-ers’ lives. They were organized into threesquads, or messes, so they probablykindled at least six cooking fires duringmost days of the expedition. The captainsand other members of the party were of-ten alone in the wilderness, and on suchoccasions they surely made fires for cook-ing, warmth, and security. One can imagine, too, thelight from lodge fires dancing on their faces as theyparlayed with chiefs over a ceremonial pipe.

The journals mention the occasional scarceness oftimber, forcing them to resort to dried fish, sage, orbuffalo dung for fuel. Although fueling a fire could be

a problem, seldom does the record refer to any dif-ficulty lighting a fire, even though the journal keep-

ers are silent on exactly how they did it. Eldon G.Chuinard observed that “nowhere in the journals

or letters of the Expedition is there a definite de-scription of making a fire.”1 This

statement, however, is trueonly with reference to thecorps itself—as Edmond S.Meany has pointed out, “thejournals relate . . . instances ofIndians obtaining fire by fric-tion” (referring to Lewis’s en-try of August 23, 1805, de-

scribing the Shoshones’ useof fire sticks, bow-drill, andtinder).2 Chuinard surmised

that the corps’s fire-makers“may have used the old Indian

wood-friction method, or amagnifying glass when the sun was

shining,” but probably they preferred “flints and gunpowder.”

F L I N T A N D S T E E L

The friction or strike matches familiar to us todaywere not generally available to Americans until the lateD

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1830s.3 Without friction matches, the Corps of Dis-covery would have relied mainly on flint and steel, atechnology

known to the Romans and . . . developed in the DarkAges along with hand-wrought steel for weaponsand armor. The steel, which was curved so as to forma handle, was held in the left hand and struck withthe sharp edge of the flint. Good tinder was veryimportant and was made by charring lint, or othereasily combustible material, and keeping it dry in atinder box or pouch. The fire maker blew upon thelighted tinder to spread the fire and added shavings,or perhaps so-called matches, which then meant onlysplints dipped in sulphur. If everything went right,a fire was kindled in a few minutes, but the flintmight have lost its sharp edge, the steel might beblunted and the tinder might be damp from rainyweather or merely from fog; moreover, as the firewas usually built in the dark before sunrise, whichwas the getting-up time in those days, the knucklesmight be hit instead of the steel, and the fumes in-haled in ineffectual puffing.”4

The above description, from a history of the DiamondMatch Company, applies to a typical American house-hold of 1830, not a wilderness setting in which the fire-starter might have had to cope with damp and wind.One can imagine the expedition’s men cursing as theybent over a pile of dried moss, striking flint against steeland nursing a flame by blowing on the smoking tinder.That the corps typically used flint and steel is indicatedby Lewis’s equipage list (below) and reinforced byPatrick Gass’s journal entry of August 29, 1805, de-scribing the “somewhat curious” Shoshone method ofmaking fire by use of a stick-drill, which required “afew minutes” to produce a flame.5 If Gass found theprocedure “curious,” it is doubtful that this method wasregularly employed by the corps.

That flint and steel was the method of choice is evi-dent in the records of Lewis’s effort in Philadelphia in1803 to obtain supplies and equipment for the expe-dition. Under the heading of “Camp Equipage,” his“List of Requirements” included “30 Steels for strik-ing or making fire, 100 Flints [ditto].” Under the sameheading he also listed other fire-making materials: “2Vials of Phosforus, 1 of Phosforus made of allum &sugar, 12 Bunches of Small cord.” Under the heading“Indian Presents,” his list included “100 BurningGlasses, 4 Vials of Phosforus, 288 Steels for strikingfire.”6 The record further shows that Lewis requisi-tioned from the Ordnance Department a number of

“Packg. Boxes,” including one for “Slow Match,” and“50 lbs. Best rifle powder.”7

We can reasonably assume how these fire-makingmaterials were apportioned among the members of thecorps. In the case of flint and steel it seems likely thateach soldier carried his own in a pouch, enabling himto start a fire for warmth or cooking when separatedfrom the main party (as Lewis, Clark, Drouillard, Shan-non, and others were from time to time). The desig-nated mess cooks would have used their flint-and-steelkits in the morning and evening and occasionally at mid-day (though by the Detachment Order of May 26, 1804,“no cooking will be allowed in the day while on thema[r]ch”). The corps’s three sergeants were specificallyexempt from making fires or cooking, but like the cap-tains they must have carried their own flint and steel.The other fire items—the vials of phosphorous, cord,extra flints, and the mysterious “slow” matches—wouldhave been stored for use when needed.

“S L O W M AT C H E S ” A N D “ L U C I F E R S ”

References in the journals to so-called slow matchesare couched in the term “port fire” (usually spelled“portfire”), a type of fuse used to ignite a cannon. Inthe University of Nebraska Press edition of the jour-nals, editor Gary Moulton describes this item as “aslow-burning fuse, probably a cord impregnated withgunpowder or some other flammable substance.”8 In

Striking flint against steel was the standard way of starting a fire.


Clark’s description of the corps’s confrontation withthe Teton Sioux on September 28, 1804, he states thathe “took the port fire from the gunner” manning thekeelboat’s swivel cannon. A year and a half later, onApril 2, 1806, Clark averted a confrontation with agroup of Indians on the Willamette with a bit of magicinvolving a “Small pece of port fire match.” (More onthis later.)

Based on some tantalizing if indirect evidence, somehistorians have asserted that the Corps of Discovery, atleast on occasion, used phosphorus-based frictionmatches, also known in the parlance of the day as “luci-fers.” Meany refers to Mrs. Eva Emery Dye (writingin 1902), who declared that Lewis and Clark hadmatches that “were struck on the Columbia a genera-tion before Boston or London made use of the secret.”9

Chuinard notes a reference from Henry M. Brack-enridge (writing in 1834) claiming that “while the restof the world was using flint and steel, Lewis and Clarkwere able to strike matches far out on the ColumbiaRiver.”10

T H E E N G A G I N G D R . S A U G R A I N

Brackenridge bases this assumption on his personalknowledge of Dr. Antoine Saugrain, a peripateticFrench expatriate and inventor.

Called the “First Scientist of the Mississippi Valley,”11

Saugrain was a chemist and naturalist and the only phy-

sician in the frontier community of St. Louis whenLewis and Clark arrived there in 1803. Described by acontemporary as “a cheerful, sprightly little French-man”—he was just four-feet-six—he had been ap-pointed by President Jefferson, after the cession of Loui-siana to the United States, as the resident surgeon atFort Bellefontaine, a nearby military post.12

A member of a distinguished Parisian family,Saugrain was schooled in the natural sciences and as ayoung man he had taken part in a mineralogical ex-ploration in Mexico. Following the outbreak of theFrench Revolution, he settled with other French ex-iles at Gallipolis, Ohio, and later moved to Lexing-ton, Kentucky.

The doctor was something of a showman and seemsto have liked nothing better than putting on scientificdemonstrations. These included placing “little phospho-ric matches” in a glass tube, sucking the air out to cre-ate a vacuum, then breaking the glass—at which pointthe matches ignited spontaneously. He also fabricatedbriquets phosphoriques—phosphorous “lighters”—andexperimented with electricity, repeating the famous kiteexperiment of his friend Benjamin Franklin, whom hehad met years before while visiting Philadelphia.13

By 1800 Saugrain was settled in St. Louis.14 Threeyears later he met Meriwether Lewis. “It is inconceiv-able,” writes Meany, “that Captain Lewis was not fa-miliar with Dr. Saugrain’s hobbies and vocation or that

A Cheyenne fire kit included a pouch, steel, flints, and tinder holder. A fire drill: Lewis and Clark observed the Shoshones using this method.

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he was not frequently welcomed in the Doctor’s homeand laboratory.”14 Given Saugrain’s eminence as a natu-ralist and physician, both Lewis and Clark doubtlessconsulted with him during their five months at CampDubois. The colorful doctor’s bag of tricks included“lucifers,” and it is reasonable to assume that he gavethe captains at least a few of them, either for use at CampDubois or for later on their journey.

It is a gift that Lewis in particular would have appre-ciated, for his mentor, Thomas Jefferson, had been us-ing friction matches since at least 1784, when he wroteto his friend Charles Thompson

I should have sent you a specimen of the phospho-ric matches . . . . They are a beautiful discovery andvery useful, especially to heads which, like yours andmine, cannot at all times be got to sleep. The conve-nience of lighting a candle without getting out ofbed, of sealing letters without calling a servant, ofkindling a fire without flint, steel, punk, &c., is ofvalue.15

Lewis would doubtless have shared the President’senthusiasm for friction matches while the two men livedtogether in the White House, and the possibility ofmaking “lucifers” in the field may be one reason he in-cluded phosphorus in the provisions he gathered inPhiladelphia.

The journals’ single reference to the vials of phos-phorus Lewis acquired in Philadelphia comes late in

the expedition, when the explorers were preparing tore-cross the Rockies on the homeward leg of their jour-ney. On June 2, 1806, Lewis gave McNeal and Yorksome items for trading with Indians—buttons, eye wa-ter, basilicon, and “some Phials and small tin boxeswhich I had brought out with phosphorous.” It’s notclear if the vials still contained phosphorus or if Lewishad used it. If so, how? The journals are silent. As sug-gested, the captains may have made friction matcheswith it. They may also have used it to make portfire.

M A G I C O N T H E W I L L A M E T T E

Clark made clever use of portfire—perhaps impregnatedwith phosphorus—on April 2, 1806, when he parlayedwith a group of Indians over a lodge fire near the banksof the Willamette River. He wanted to trade with themfor wappato roots, but noted in exasperation that they“positively refused.” He describes what happened next:

I had a Small pece of port fire match in my pocket,off of which I cut . . . a pece one inch in length &and put it into the fire and took out my pocketCompas and Set myself doun on a mat on one Sideof the fire.

Clark also took out a magnet in the top of his ink stand.The portfire caught and “burned vehemently,” chang-ing the color of the fire. With his magnet Clark then“turned the needle of the Compas about very briskly;

Dr. Antoine Saugrain (right) may have given “lucifers”—strike matches—to Lewis, who probably visited him at his home in St Louis (left).

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which astonished and alarmed these nativs and they laidSeveral parsles of Wappato at my feet, & begged of meto take out the bad fire.”16

The key feature in this incident seems to have beenthe “bad” color in the fire. Unfortunately, Clark doesn’tspecify the exact color. Could it have been the blue lightof burning phosphorus? It seems probable, for sinceits discovery in 1669, phosphorus had long been re-garded as a “miraculous chemical” for the “cold light”of its flame.17

On the other hand, if the portfire had been impreg-nated with black powder (made from charcoal, saltpe-ter, and sulfur, a first cousin to phosphorus in the Tableof Elements) the color would have been yellow-orange.That, at least, was the color a friend of mine, StuartHarris of North Bend, Washington, got when he ex-perimented with portfire in his back yard. With Clarkon the Willamette in mind, Harris ignited a thimble fullof black powder, resulting in a cloud of gray smokeand a yellowish-orange flash.

Because yellow-orange is closer to the color of awood fire and would not, therefore, have had the sameimpact as a cold blue flame, perhaps phosphorus wasthe magic ingredient in Clark’s portfire. In the mindsof the Indians, however, it may have been the associa-tion of two acts of magic—the moving compass andthe flaming cord—that made the color “bad.”

Alas, the silence of the journals on this and otherimponderables of the Lewis and Clark Expedition re-calls a remark made by Antoine Saugrain to his daugh-ter during an experiment in the doctor’s laboratory: “Weare working in the dark, my child. I only know enoughto know that I know nothing.”18

Robert R. Hunt, a long-time member of the Foundation anda frequent contributor to WPO, lives in Seattle. For their help-ful suggestions in his research he is indebted to Hugh Gildeaof Cobham, Virginia, Donald Nell of Bozeman, Montana,

tury of Service, of Progress, and of Growth, 1835-1935 (NewYork: Diamond Match Co., 1935), pp. 14-15.

4Ibid., pp. 8-9.

5Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986-99, 12volumes), Vol. 10, p. 134. All quotations or references to jour-nal entries in the ensuing text are from Moulton, Volumes 2-11,by date, unless otherwise indicated, without further citation.

6Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition(University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1978), Vol. 1, pp. 71-72.

7Ibid., pp. 92-98.

8In the parlance of the early 1800s “slow” or portfire matchesrelated to gunnery or artillery accessories. (They were “slow”because they burned slowly; “port” referred to the opening inthe cannon in which the fuse was inserted.) The Oxford EnglishDictionary (second edition; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989; Vol.15, p. 747) citing “James Milit Hist,” 1802, states that the slowmatch is “made of hemp, or tow, spun on the wheel like cord,but very slack, and . . . composed of three twists.” The OEDunder its entry for “match” (Vol. 9, p. 458) notes that the slowmatch is “so prepared that when lighted at the end it is not eas-ily extinguished, and continues to burn at a uniform rate; usedfor firing cannon or other fire-arms, and for igniting a train ofgunpowder . . . burns at the rate of one yard in three hours.”

9Meany, pp. 295-96, referring to Eva Emery Dye, The Conquest(A.C. McClurg & Co., 1902), Chapter 5.

10Chuinard, pp. 198-99, n. 9, citing William Clark Kennerly,Persimmon Hill (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1940),p. 141, and other references.

11Meany, p. 309, n. 24, citing W.V. Byars, The First Scientist inthe Mississippi Valley, (pamphlet), pp. 14-15.

12Saugrain de Vigni, Antoine Francois, 1783-1821, L’OdyseeAmericaine d’une Famille Francaise {par} le docteur AntoineSaugraine; H. Foure Selter, ed. (Baltimore: The Johns HopkinsPress, 1936), p.33.

13 Ibid., pp. 3-67.

14Meany, p. 310.

15The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, No. 5138, p. 544.

16To James Ronda, such “technological wizardry” had a “grim-mer side.” As he notes, Clark’s intimidation of women, chil-dren, and an old man suggests a “willingness to bend the ruleswhenever it suited the expedition’s need.” See James P. Ronda,Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1984), p. 216. Yet one may reasonably askwhether this situation differs basically from many other occa-sions throughout the journey when Lewis and Clark exhibitedother scientific wonders—the air gun, magnifying glasses, com-pass, magnet, etc—to Indians to enhance a mood for trade and asense of primacy in a potentially hostile environment.

17Edward Farber, “History of Phosphorous,” U.S. NationalMuseum Bulletin 240, Paper 40 (Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianInstitution, 1965), p. 178.

18Meany, p. 307; L’Odysee, p. 35.

1E. G. Chuinard, M.D., The Medical Aspects of the Lewis andClark Expedition (Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, WesternFrontiersmen Series 19, 1979; Fourth Printing 1989), p. 199.

2Edmond S. Meany, “Dr. Saugrain Helped Lewis and Clark,” TheWashington Historical Quarterly, Vol. 22 (October 1931, p. 298.

3Herbert Manchester, The Diamond Match Company; a Cen-

NOTES

and Stuart Harris of North Bend, Washington.


Acharacter in astory by Nor-man Maclean

describes the BitterrootMountains in westernMontana as a “wall . . .which could have beenthe end of the world . . .windrows of momentarywhite. Beyond the wall, itseemed likely, eternitywent on in windrows ofBitteroot Mountains andsummer snow.”1

Similar feelings mayhave engulfed Lewis andClark when the Corps ofDiscovery faced the Bit-terroots in early September 1805, after they came tothe reluctant conclusion that only an overland routethrough the mountains, and not a river route, could takethem to their westward destination. For this, they wouldneed more horses than they had ever imagined, moreinformation than they had any hope of acquiring, andmore courage than they thought they had brought withthem. It was a daunting moment. Then occurred ablessed encounter. After leaving their Shoshone friends,Sacagawea’s people, they climbed with great difficultya spur of the Bitterroots and then descended throughLost Trail Pass, eventually entering a beautiful valleywhich we today call Ross’s Hole.2 There, on Septem-ber 4, they surprised “a large camp of Indians . . .called

Ootlashoots. . . . one bandof a nation called Tush-epaws.”3 The Salish, orFlatheads as they came tobe known, were on theirway eastward to kill buf-falo before winter came.The explorers visited withthem, purchased horses,and obtained directions.Perhaps they even replen-ished their courage.Whatever they got suf-ficed for their journeyacross the mountains.This was their last contactwith an Indian commu-nity before the comple-

tion of the arduous crossing of the main range whichspilled them into the land of the Nez Perce in present-day Idaho. Not a moment of high drama in the Lewisand Clark saga, perhaps, but certainly one of strategicimportance. It also had the kind of pictorial potential—the forbidding mountains, the friendly Indians, the ritu-als governing the meeting—that a good visual narra-tive called for.

This is the incident immortalized by artist CharlesM. Russell in the painting commissioned by the Mon-tana state government for the legislative chamber of theCapitol, in Helena, in 1911, Lewis and Clark MeetingIndians at Ross’ Hole.4 It was not, however, his firstsubject choice, or for that matter, his choice at all. With

LEWIS AND CLARK

AT ROSS’S HOLEThe story behind Charles M. Russell’s 1912 painting,

one of the great works of Western American art

by Patricia M. Burnham

Detail from Russell’s mural shows Old Toby, the Corps of Discovery’sShoshone guide, signing with the Flatheads while Lewis and Clark look

on. York holds the horses, and Sacagawea kneels in the grass.

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of Attorney General Albert J. Galen) did not help.6

Worst of all, the Board of Examiners feared thatRussell would fail to finish his painting on time. Gov-ernor Norris visited Great Falls in early April 1912 andwas appalled to learn that Russell had made littleprogress on the commission. The ensuing controversywas played out in the daily press at stage-voice deci-bels. A headline in the Great Falls Daily Tribune forMonday, April 8, blared, WANTS RUSSELL TO STARTON HIS WORK. The text stated that Norris was insist-ing on a firm deadline of September 1 and unfavorablycompared Russell’s delay to the industry and prompt-ness of the other two artists. The next day’s edition ofthe Tribune carried an angry response headlined,RUSSELL’S WORK WILL BE DONE ON TIME, SAYFRIENDS. On April 30, Norris sent an official com-plaint to Russell at his studio, in Great Falls, whichoccasioned an indignant reply from his wife and busi-ness manager, Nancy. On May 2, she wrote that theartist “is devoting his entire time to the mural and it isprogressing rapidly, beyond our expectations.” Thefears of Norris and the committee were not entirelyunfounded. Russell had made extensive forays away

how little reflection one can only wonder, Russell hadoriginally suggested an attack by Indians on a wagontrain or Lewis’s meeting with the Shoshones. On No-vember 11, 1911, Governor Edwin L. Norris acknowl-edged receipt from Russell of two watercolor sketcheson these subjects, neither one of which the Board ofExaminers found acceptable. The Governor repliedstarchly that the Indian attack “does not appeal to us asa suitable decoration for the House of Representa-tives.”5 The second possibility showed an encounter thathad taken place in Idaho, not Montana, the Governorpatiently explained. Norris claimed to have immersedhimself in the Journals of Lewis and Clark, where hefound two episodes that would be suitable—the meet-ing with the Flatheads or the fight between Lewis’s partyand Blackfeet Indians on the Upper Marias River dur-ing the return trip. Russell, the Governor, and the Boardof Examiners eventually agreed that the meeting withthe Flatheads would work best.

Correspondence between government officials andRussell and the other two artists selected for this phaseof decoration of the Capitol was often similarly con-tentious in tone. The decoration of the original Capi-tol, during the administation of Joseph K. Toole, wasundertaken by Charles A. Pedretti for F. Pedretti’s Sons,a professional firm in Cincinnati primarily devoted toarchitectural decoration. Relations apparently pro-ceeded relatively smoothly. The later effort, what mightbe called the Populist phase of Capitol decoration, wasgiven over to three Montana artists—Russell, EdgarSamuel Paxson (1852-1919) and Ralph DeCamp(1858-1936)—by government fiat. Senate joint Resolu-tion No. 4, approved on February 2, 1911, stipulatedthat the imagery be based on “early Montana scenesand figures, as are of value from a historical standpoint,and that such decorations be executed by MontanaArtists of recognized ability and standing.” Paxson wasasked to do several paintings of mixed sizes for the ves-tibule of the House principally on the Lewis and Clarktheme, and DeCamp, a series of landscapes for theformer Law Library. It is evident from their many com-munications that the Montana artists did not enjoy thefull confidence of the Governor and his committee. Thefact that Russell and Paxson bungled their subjects atthe outset and got the sizes of their respective paintingswrong (which brought down on their heads the wrath

One of many preliminary pencil sketches Russell made ofthe central figure. The warrior’s Michelangelesque gestureand turn of head reinforce the painting’s dramatic sweep.

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from home that spring, first to New York and laterto Florida, when he might reasonably have been ex-pected to be at work on the Capitol commission.Nancy Russell’s determined rejoinder, however,pointed out a salient aspect of the artist’s workingmethods—his astonishing rapidity. The painting wasinstalled in the House of Representatives ahead ofschedule on July 11, 1912.

“A M O N U M E N T T O H I S G E N I U S ”

Any reservations Norris and his committee may havehad were buried in an avalanche of praise. An anony-mous reviewer writing in the Great Falls Daily Tribunein a tone of lofty intellectual authority lauded the paint-ing unstintingly. “If all the works of Russell, save this,were to perish,” he enthused, “this picture would standalone as a monument to his genius which would give

Although Russell’s commission sought to glorify the Anglo-American conquest, the artist chose to


him a leading place among America’s great artists.” In-terestingly, the reviewer did not structure his remarksin terms of the painting’s formal properties of technique,facture, or style, but instead emphasized “the subjectand its development,” thus drawing attention toRussell’s narrative gifts.

Certain it is that Russell’s first attempt at historypainting on a monumental scale for a public place was

a decided triumph, made so especially by his narra-tivizing strategies. The sweep of horses and Indian rid-ers into the center foreground, the tilted lances, the dra-matic cloud patterns, create an action scene of stupen-dous energy and vitality. The historically significantnegotiations between Lewis and Clark and the triballeaders, on the other hand, are almost lost to view inthe quiet of the middle ground at right. Russell’s de-

o place the Indians at the center of his narrative and relegated Lewis and Clark to the background.

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cision to privilege the Indians was not just an exercisein picturesqueness but a conscious narrativization ofan alternative history. What he understood to be theheroic life of the Indians, whose land this was, wouldbe forever and entirely changed by the visit from theunprepossessing characters. He lavished dramatic treat-ment on the people who would soon be vanquished,knowing full well the unfathomable power that lay be-hind the gentle intruders.

There has been considerable commentary about themountain background that forms the upper horizontalplane of the painting, starting with the obvious fact thatspring scenery is depicted in an incident that took place

in early September. It is also noticeable that the higherelevations at the right do not appear to segue properlywith the southern part of the range to the left, whichmay be one of the reasons why Russell allowed theclouds and mist to obscure the elisions as much as theydo. Russell made on-site sketches for the mountainscapewhich unfortunately seem not to have survived, or atleast not to have been so identified. In a letter datedMay 21, 1912, Nancy Russell reassured GovernorNorris that “the picture is progressing beautifully,”adding that Russell “goes to Ross’s Hole this week forthe mountain background.” Local newspapers pickedup this information, as they did practically every detailof Russell’s life, with estimates of the time spent in theSula basin ranging wildly from two days to two months.

Tradition holds that Russell made the sketches onthe front porch of the log cabin owned by Jake andMay Wetzsteon on a western hill overlooking the Sulabasin, in the valley of the East Fork of the BitterrootRiver, east of the town of Sula.7 This could only bepartly correct, because the front porch looks south-east to the foothills rather than west and north to themain range of the Bitterroots. Reminiscing many yearslater, however, Nancy Russell recalled that “We stayedat Darby [a town some 25 miles downstream (north),on the main stem of the Bitterroot] and hired a buck-board to take us around through that part of the coun-try so that Charlie could get the lay of the land.”8

William G. Krieghoff’s portrait of Charlie RussellC

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The cabin on the ranch of Jake and May Wetzsteon, where Russell stayed in 1911 while studyingthe landscape of the Sula basin. This photo dates from ca. 1980. The cabin was razed in the 1990s.

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There is indeed a section of road along present-dayRoute 93 a few miles north of Sula that offers a viewsomewhat similar to the one in the painting—the motifof high mountains presiding majestically over forestedfoothills—but the contours do not match exactly. Thecharacteristic cragginess of the Bitterroots is missingfrom the painting. An early 20th-century photographof the area by Montana photographer Bertie Lord, al-though less panoramic in its extent, reveals the samekind of juxtaposition of higher and lower mountainsemphasized by Russell. The outlines of Trapper Peak,caught so well by Lord, are distinctly visible in the leftportion of Russell’s mural. As for the rest of themountainscape, it appears to be a more generalizedimage of Bitterroot scenery. Russell was usually atten-tive to the specifics of site when the subject demandedit; if he painted what he called a Glacier Park scene,then certainly it resembled Glacier Park scenery. It issomewhat surprising that greater fidelity to the site isnot more apparent in the Capitol mural, especially con-sidering the fact that he made a documented visit to thearea in order to make visual observations. But perhapsthe fault lies with the critics—we simply have not yetfound the match between site and scene. Russell didnot compromise the larger truth he envisioned, how-ever. The vast expanse of high mountain area, even ifnot topographically exact, convincingly characterizesthe “wall” of “windrows of momentary white” that

stood between the Corps of Discovery and the realiza-tion of its goal.

Likewise, one could criticize some of the details ofcostume, etc., of the Indians, as many anthropologistsand others have. What can be credited to Russell, how-ever, is that, within the limitations of historical knowl-edge available to him at the time, his record for accu-racy is actually quite good. He had recourse to histori-cal materials in the Great Falls library, he of course hadread the Journals of Lewis and Clark (although theywould not necessarily have provided complete visualdescriptions), and he had amassed his own collection

Trapper Peak, which appears in the left background of the painting.The Bitterroots proved a formidable barrier to the Corps of Discovery.

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The view of Ross’s Hole from the cabin porch. Local tradition says Russell made his preliminarysketches from the porch, although it faces in the opposite direction of the landscape he painted.

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of Indian artifacts on which he drew regularly.9 Onemystery remains: why he clothed the black slave York(visible in the painting tending the horses to the rightof Lewis and Clark) in tight breeches and a tricornerhat rather than more rustic wear. He dressed the figurein breeches again in the watercolor York, the often-re-produced painting depicting him stripped to the waistin a Mandan earth lodge. Yet an undated costume studyof York by Russell shows him in buckskins, indicatingan alternative conception. For the Capitol mural,Russell seemingly made a conscious decision (no doubtbased on what he thought were authoritative visual orverbal sources) to render York in what otherwise mightseem to be an idiosyncratic choice of costume.10

V I S U A L S T O RY T E L L I N G

An artistic task of at least as great importance to a his-tory painter as getting his facts straight was the ancientone of “invention.” That is, the creation of composi-tion, poses, and gestures in order to signify the mean-ing of the action—what Russell’s reviewer in 1912 hadreferred to as “the subject and its development.” In 1771,the British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds stated: “When-ever a story is related, every man forms a picture in hismind of the action and expression of the persons em-ployed. The power of representing this mental pictureon canvas is what we call invention in a painter.”11 Inall likelihood, Charlie Russell had never heard of SirJoshua Reynolds, and in any case, his artistic aims dif-fered radically from those of Reynolds. But he was nev-

ertheless intuitively aware of the importance of “inven-tion” to visual storytelling. In the attention he gave tocompositional values as well as to individual expres-sion, we can see the “power” of the original mental pic-ture transferred to canvas. Note how, at the precise cen-ter of the canvas, the principal Indian figure looks tothe right while extending his right arm laterally in theopposite direction in a bold, Michelangelesque gesture.Russell made numerous pencil sketches of this figureuntil he arrived at the pose, the physical features, andabove all, the telling gesture that would heighten thedrama of this encounter. The expression on the face issevere, even fierce; the action is quick, vigorous, com-manding. Lewis and Clark, on the other hand, are char-acterized as patient, thoughtful, and above all cautiousas they await the results of the Shoshone guide’s trans-lation efforts. Although Russell worked hard on theparticulars of individual expression, it is the great sweepof action that gives the picture its epic breadth. The arcof riders that stops its full gallop only at the very lastminute, as if within a few feet of the viewer, is one ofRussell’s most dynamic compositions. Russell not onlyunderstood well the demands of narrative for psychol-ogy of expression, but also the need to enhance themeaning of the incident by creating a significant action.

Governor Norris and his committee needn’t haveworried so about the three Montana artists. Paxson’sfigures, perhaps the weakest of the three, are too bigfor the limited sight lines of the vestibule in which theyhang, and are rather wooden, but the ensemble is nicelycolored and “decorative” in the Pedretti sense.

In Edgar Samuel Paxson’s “Lewis and Clark at Three Forks,” a companion mural commissioned at the same timeas Russell’s, Sacagawea points the way. It hangs in the vestibule of Montana’s legislative chamber.

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DeCamp’s landscapes, surprisingly small in scale, arebeautifully painted and confer a lyrical presence on theformer Law Library. But it is Russell’s Lewis and ClarkMeeting Indians at Ross’ Hole that dominates its space,not only physically, but psychologically, and perhapsone might say, even morally. Russell’s ultimate achieve-ment was to tender a highly personal and critical inter-pretation of a significant event in national history thattook place on the soil of his adopted state, one withextremely serious consequences for two nations.Against the grain of the rest of the Capitol imagery,which sought to valorize the Anglo-American conquest,Russell alone made a significant counter-statement. Thisis not to try to further the impression of Russell as asimple-minded sentimentalist bent on showing the su-periority of the Indian. Revisionist historians havesought to change that conception of Russell, showingthat Russell’s mind-set on these matters was highly com-plex.12 In this one painting, however, so strategicallyplaced, he tweaks the noses, pricks the consciences, andmoves the hearts of the legislative body. One of theprincipal tenets of traditional history painting held thatthe artist’s most necessary and noble function was toinstruct the viewer. In Lewis and Clark Meeting Indi-ans at Ross’ Hole, Russell did just that. He seemed toknow instinctively that it should be done, what the les-son should be, and how to go about doing it.13

Patricia M. Burnham teaches in the American Studies pro-gram and the Art and Art History Department at the Uni-versity of Texas, Austin. She is the coeditor, with LucretiaGeise, of Redefining American History Painting (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995). This article originally appeared insomewhat different form in Russell’s West, Vol. 3, No. 1(1995), the publication of the C. M. Russell Museum, in GreatFalls, Montana (www.cmrussell.org).

EN D N O T E S

4This is the official title of the work as listed at the MontanaHistorical Society. The painting has been known by many dif-ferent titles over its lifetime, but the preferred one is that cho-sen by the Historical Society, which is the same title as thatlisted in A Bibliography of the Published Works of Charles M.Russell, compiled by Karl Yost and Frederic G. Renner (Lin-coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), p. 293. Russell him-self used this title in his copyright application. See Yost andRenner, p. v.5Montana Historical Society, Montana Board of ExaminersRecords, Collection No. RS196, Box 2, Folder 37. All corre-spondence citations are from this source unless otherwise noted.The preliminary sketches have never been found.6In the case of Russell, at least, the government eventually ac-knowledged some culpability in the misunderstanding. Russell’scontract contained a serious misstatement of size—about 12 by14 feet instead of 12 by 25 feet—which the Board of Examinersfelt should have been recognized immediately as an error. Nev-ertheless, on January 29, 1912, Attorney General Galen prom-ised to reimburse Russell for the canvas he had purchased in thewrong size that was now unuseable. Montana State Archives—Attorney General. A remnant of the canvas remains in the col-lection of the C. M. Russell Museum.7See notations by Mrs. Jake Wetzsteon (1944) and PeggyWetzsteon Windsor (1979) in Bitterroot Trails, ed. Lena EversoleBell and Henry Hamilton Grant (The Bitter Root Valley His-torical Society, 1982), pp. 65 and 77. The Wetzsteon’s log cabinwas torn down in the the early 1990s.8Letter from Nancy Russell to R. H. Fletcher, November 14,1936, in the Homer E. Britzman Collection, Taylor Museumfor Southwestern Studies, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.9Russell probably would have used the 1893 version edited byElliott Coues already cited, or possibly Reuben Gold Thwaites,ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,1804-1806, (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904-05). In herletter to R. H. Fletcher previously cited, Nancy Russell statedthat the Lewis and Clark journals he consulted had “disappearedin some way.”10The definitive study of York is by Robert B. Betts, In Searchof York (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985).Although Betts does not discuss visual representations of York’sdress in art, he does mention that house slaves, particularly the bodyservant, often wore the cast-off garments of the master (p. 95).11Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, Stephen O. Mitchell,ed. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965), p. 40.12For two quite different but serious and responsible analysesof this problem, see Raphael Cristy, “Charlie’s Hidden Agenda:Realism and Nostalgia in C. M. Russell’s Stories about Indi-ans,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 1993(Vol. 43, No. 3), pp. 2-15; and Alexander Nemerov, “Projectingthe Future: Film and Race in the Art of Charles Russell,” Ameri-can Art, Winter 1994 (Vol. 8, No. 1), pp. 71-89.13Funding for the research for this article was obtained from twogrants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Travelto Collections grant in 1992 and a Summer Stipend in 1994, forboth of which I am extremely grateful. I also extend my deepestappreciation to the staff of the Montana Historical Society, RickStewart at the Amon Carter Museum, and Ginger Renner.

1Norman Maclean, “U.S. Forest Service 1919: The Ranger, theCook, and a Hole in the Sky,” A River Runs Through It andOther Stories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 146.2Possible routes and campsite are discussed in Gary E. Moulton,ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, (Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1988), Vol. 5, pp. 186-88. TheCorps of Discovery probably camped with the Flatheads onthe east side of Camp Creek, near its junction with the EastFork of the Bitterroot.3Elliott Coues, ed., The History of the Lewis and Clark Expedi-tion by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (New York: DoverPublications, Inc., 1965; reprint of 1893 edition), Vol. 2, pp. 581-83.


In his letter of instruction to Meriwether Lewis ashe prepared to cross the continent with the Corpsof Discovery, Thomas Jefferson told him to ob-

serve “the animals of the country generally, and espe-cially those not known in the U.S.”1 As a result, theLewis and Clark journals contain the first reliable docu-mentation of wildlife in the drainages of the Missouriand Columbia rivers.

One of the animals recorded by Lewis and Clark—and which became one of the staples of their mostlycarnivorous diet—was the wapiti, or American elk(Cervus elaphus). Wildlife biologists have estimated thatbefore European settlement the continent may have

supported an elk population of 10 million.2 Inprecolonial times this large member of the deer family,although now associated almost exclusively with theRocky Mountains, was abundant on the plains andranged as far east as the woodlands of Pennsylvania andNew York and south to Georgia.3 The Corps of Dis-covery encountered four of the six subspecies—theEastern, Manitoban (plains), Rocky Mountain, andRoosevelt (Northwest coastal) elk.4

An English sea captain, George Waymouth, reported

WAPITI

Above: John James Audubon’s painting of a bull and cow elk was basedon field sketches he made on a trip to Fort Union, near the junction ofthe Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, in 1843.

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The ubiquitous American elk was a staple in both

By Ken Walcheck

the diet and the journals of Lewis and Clark


sighting “Olkes,” or elk, on his voyage to Virginia in1605.5 The American elk’s European counterpart andclose relation is the red deer, but the animal Europeanscall an elk is in fact what Americans call a moose. Thereis no evidence, however, that moose in postglacial timesever ranged as far south as Virginia. Waymouth prob-ably applied the name indiscriminately to any big, large-racked member of the deer family. Perhaps to avoid suchconfusion, in 1806 the naturalist Benjamin Smith Bartongave it the species name wapiti, a term he borrowedfrom the Shawnees, in whose language it means “lightrump.”6 Barton was one of the scientists who advisedLewis during his pre-expedition visit to Philadelphiain the spring of 1803, but it’s not known whether heurged the explorer to use the term wapiti in his recordedobservations. If Barton did, Lewis ignored him—thejournals of both Lewis and Clark refer only to elk.

The expedition left Camp Wood, near St. Louis, onMay 14, 1804. About a month later, on June 17, when ithad reached present-day Carol County, Missouri, Lewisdescribed a country abounding in “Bear Deer & Elk.”7

Clark mentioned sighting elk on July 12, when the ex-pedition was in Richardson County, Nebraska, and twodays later Patrick Gass wrote that they “saw some elk,but could not kill any.” Their luck changed on August1 in Washington County, Nebraska, a few miles northof present-day Omaha: “3 Deer & an Elk Killed to day,”Clark reported. It was his 34th birthday, and to cel-ebrate he ordered a dinner of venison, beaver tail, and“an Elk fleece,” topped off with a dessert of wild fruits.

M O N TA N A 1 8 0 5 : A M E R I C A N S E R E N G H E T I

After wintering at Fort Mandan, in North Dakota, theexpedition headed west up the Missouri in the springof 1805. On April 27 it entered Montana, where Clarkobserved “great numbers of Goats or antilopes, Elk,Swan Gees & Ducks” although “no buffalow to day.”His gaze took in one of the richest gamelands in theworld. Next to the buffalo, or American bison, the larg-est ungulate in that vast landscape was the wapiti: amature buck elk can stand over five feet tall and weighmore than 600 pounds.8

During the Montana portions of the expedition, thejournals mention elk 95 times (65 on the outbound legand 30 homeward bound). Most of the entries are pass-

ing references to sightings or kills, but they also dis-cuss habitat, grazing patterns, antler development, andthe use of elk hides for making clothes, moccasins, andtow ropes. Elk hides were also used to make the skin ofLewis’s iron boat, his ill-conceived experiment at theGreat Falls of the Missouri (the hide worked fine, butthe boat leaked due to a lack of pitch to seal the seams).

The expedition’s hunters killed at least 117 elk inMontana, some 40 percent of them east of the moun-tains, in Chouteau and Cascade counties, (See table,page 31, for a summary of the 396 total elk killed overthe course of the expedition.)9 The great majority ofMontana kills occurred on the plains. Few elk, in fact,were observed in the mountains west of the ThreeForks, which the outbound Corps of Discovery reachedon July 25, 1805, and no elk were killed from August 7

Precolonial distribution of the six subspecies of American elk.Lewis and Clark encountered the Eastern, Manitoban, RockyMountain, and Roosevelt subspecies.

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• May 13, 1805: “the party killed several deer and someElk principally for the benefit of their skins which arenecessary to them for claothing.”—Lewis

• May 28, 1805: “our ropes are but slender, all of themexcept one being made of Elk’s skins, and much woarn,frequently wet and exposed to the heat of the weather areweak and rotten.”—Lewis.

(It was by means of a cordelle or “chord”—a heavy towrope made of elk hides—that allowed the boats to be hauledupstream by the men pulling them along the shore).

• June 21, 1805 (Great Falls of the Missouri): “Severalmen employed in Haveing & Graneing Elk hides for theIron boat as it is called.”—Clark

• February 23, 1806 (Fort Clatsop): “the men haveprovided themselves verry amply with mockersons &leather clothing.”—Lewis.

(Gass reported that they made 338 pairs of moccasins.“This stock,” he emphasized, “was not provided withoutgreat labor, as the most of them are made of the skins of elk.”

• February 19, 1806 (Fort Clatsop): “Sergt. Gass returnedwith the flesh of eight elk and seven skins . . . we had theskins divided among the messes in order that they mightbe prepared for covering our baggage when we set out inthe spring.”—Lewis

• April 7, 1806 (Multnomah County, Oregon, aboveRooster State Park): “This morning early the flesh of theremaining Elk was brought in . . . we employed the partyin drying the meat today which we completed by theevening and we had it secured in dryed Elkskins and puton board in readiness for an early departure.”—Lewis

Surprisingly, there is no mention in the journals ofseveral unusual sites—towering mounds of elk antlers—discovered by later explorers of the upper Missouri. In1832, Prince Maximilian of Wied recorded, 17 milesdownstream from the mouth of the Judith River, an“Elkhorn Steeple” 18 feet high, with a base of 15 feet. KarlBodmer, the artist accompanying the prince, sketched thesteeple (opposite).1 In 1854, ethnographer Edwin T. Denigreported “an immense pile of elk horns that . . . must bevery ancient” on the south side of the Missouri River, 50miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone.2 The so-calledElkhorn Monuments, according to James H. Bradley, “areamong the mysteries of the west never to be unraveled. . . .They contained many thousand horns . . . and appeared tohave been built [up over] a good many years, as the hornswere somewhat decayed and the superincumbent weighthad pressed the base of each mound several inches into theprairie soil. . . . There is nothing to indicate the purpose ofthe monuments which remain wrapped in as deep mysteryas their origin.” Bradley states that the elkhorn monumentswere “taken down by the American Fur Company in 1850and the best horns selected and carried to St. Louis in thehope they would find a ready sale.”3

NOTES

1Maximilian of Wied, Travels in the Interior of North America,1832-1834 (Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Cleveland: Arthur H.Clark Co., 1906; English translation originally published in 1843).2Edwin T. Denig, Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri. From 46thAnnual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1928-1929,J.N.B. Hewitt, ed. (Washington, D.C., 1930), pp. 375-628.3James H. Bradley, Contributions to the Historical Society ofMontana (Boston: J. S. Canner and Co., 1966)

Vol. 9:, pp. 349-350.

JOURNAL SELECTIONS ON ELK


through September 6, when the expedition ventureddeeper into the Rockies. The hunters shot their last elkin Montana on September 7 in the vicinity of Grants-dale, in the Bitterroot Valley, west of the ContinentalDivide.

The explorers left Montana on September 13 and didnot mention elk again until November 13, when Clarknoted “Elk Sign,” presumably meaning tracks, whichhe spotted at Point Ellice, on the north shore of theColumbia estuary. During the Corps’s cold, wet, andthoroughly miserable winter at Fort Clatsop, elk prob-ably made the difference in survival. Between Decem-ber 1, 1805, and March 20, 1806, according to Gass,hunters brought in 131. The winter meat was lean andtough, but it helped to keep them alive.10

On the return leg of the journey, the expedition’s lastreported elk kill before re-entering Montana occurredon the Sandy River, in eastern Oregon, on April 1. Noelk were observed in Idaho. At Travelers’ Rest on July3, Lewis and nine men, accompanied by Nez Perceguides, separated from Clark and the rest of the expe-dition to head for the Great Falls and an exploration ofthe Marias River. During the early evening of July 10,on the south side of the Sun River, they killed three elk.While exploring the Marias they sighted elk on July 20,21, 23, and 28, but killed no elk until July 30, on theMissouri below Cow Island Crossing. They killed 18

more elk before their arrival at the mouth of the Yellow-stone on August 7.

Clark and the rest of the expedition, meanwhile, hadset out for the Three Forks and the Yellowstone River.Clark’s journal reports 14 elk killed between Shield’sRiver and Big Porcupine Creek, in Rosebud County.On July 27, Clark noted that “the Buffalo and Elk isastonishingly noumerous on the banks of the river oneach side, particularly the Elk which lay on almost ev-ery point in large gangs, and are so gentile that we fre-quently pass within 20 or 30 paces of them without theirbeing the least alarmed.”

In a similar vein, Lewis on the outbound journeyhad observed on April 25, 1805, that “the buffaloe Elkand Antelope are so gentle that we pass near them whilefeeding, without apearing to excite any alarm amongthem, and when we attract their attention, they fre-quently approach us more clearly to discover what weare, and in some instances pursue us a considerable dis-tance apparently with that view.” The lack of fear shownby the elk and other game suggests they had never en-countered human hunters (more on this later).

After Clark and Lewis rejoined on August 12, some30 miles upstream from the mouth of the Little Mis-souri, the expedition proceeded homeward. Some 26more elk fell to the hunters’ guns, the last on Septem-ber 15, just below the mouth of the Kansas River.

Artist Karl Bodmer painted this elkhorn pyramid he found on the Upper Missouri in the 1830s.

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E L K D I S T R I B U T I O N T H E N A N D N O W

When Lewis and Clark crossed the continent two cen-turies ago they found elk abundant on the plains andscarce in the mountains—exactly the opposite distri-bution we find today. Biologists have long debatedwhether the elk’s “natural” habitat is mainly plains orwoodland; some have argued that elk were predomi-nantly creatures of the plains which retreated to the pro-tection of higher, timbered lands after European set-tlers usurped their traditional range.

In fact, elk thrive in both plains and woodland envi-ronments and were always at home in the latter. AsLewis observed, “They [elk] arecommon to every part of this coun-try, as well as the timbered lands asthe plains, but they are much moreabundant in the former than the lat-ter.”11 According to the naturalistOlaus J. Murie, “There is much evi-dence to show that in early timesthe elk were more generally adweller of woodlands and moun-tains than has been supposed . . . .[I]t may be safely concluded that theelk have always been at home in themountains as well as on theplains.”12 A survey of early accounts

of Montana makes it clear that elk were presentthroughout the mountains before the region was widelysettled.13

In the Rocky Mountains, differences in slope, as-pect to the sun, and elevation multiply the diversity andabundance of plants, thus providing a wide range offeeding opportunities for elk. Wildlife biologists andexperienced hunters know that weather conditions inmountain country play an important role in determin-ing elk concentrations. They also know that tempera-ture and precipitation in one year affect elk forage inthe next. All of these factors must be considered when

asking why Lewis and Clark saw sofew elk in the mountain valleys ofthe Jefferson, Beaverhead, Bitter-root, and upper Snake rivers, butfundamentally the reason seemsclear enough. Elk would have con-gregated in the valleys during thelate fall, winter, and early spring.But the outbound Corps of Discov-ery traversed the valleys in late sum-mer, when elk were still on theirfeeding grounds in the higher alpinemeadows.

Another reason has to do withthe relationship between warring

Lewis and Clark’s route, 1805-1806, showing regions of abundant and scarce game. War Zone A covers theupper Missouri from the mouth of the Yellowstone to the Great Falls and the Three Forks.

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Indians and the abundance of game. Lewis and Clarkfound more elk in the headlands above the mouth ofthe Columbia; still, they were few in number comparedto the many they had encountered on the plains ofMontana. Why? Hypotheses include differences inhabitat and hunting pressures by local tribes. A recentstudy by ecologists Paul S. Martin and Christine R.Szuter, “War Zones and Game Sinks in Lewis andClark’s West,” sheds light on the possible role of In-dian hunters in explaining this difference.14

In Martin and Szuter’s parlance, a “war zone” is a

buffer or neutral area between warring tribes living onits perimeter—war parties might penetrate the zone toskirmish but do not occupy it permanently, and the ab-sence of resident hunters allows game to flourish. Bycontrast, a “game sink” is an area occupied by numer-ous resident hunters, resulting in a scarcity of game.

Martin and Szuter argue that the upper Missouri con-stituted a huge war zone, stretching over 120,000 squarekilometers, from the mouth of the Yellowstone west tothe Three Forks and encompassing the entire regionbetween the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. To a great

Summary of elk killed bythe Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806

DAT E S LO C AT I O N NO. KI L L E D

• May 14, 1804-April 6, 1805 Camp Wood to Fort Mandan 94• April 7-26, 1805 Fort Mandan to Yellowstone River 8• April 27-September 13, 1805 Mont./N.D. border to Mont./Id. border 81• December 1, 1805-March 20, 1806 Winter at Ft. Clatsop 131• March 23-June 29, 1806 Ft. Clatsop to Montana border 20• June 30-August 3, 1806 Mont./Id. border to Mont./N.D. border 36• August 4-September 21, 1806 Mont./N.D. border to St. Louis 26

Total Elk Killed 396

*Harvest data from Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

Distribution of Plains Indians and their neighbors around the upper Missouri war zonesfrom the mouth of the Yellowstone to Great Falls (War Zone A) and between the White

and Niobrara rivers (War Zone B).

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extent this vast area served as a buffer between the tribesliving on its eastern, southern, and western fringes andthe aggressive Blackeet to the north. As Clark himselfastutely noted on August 29, 1806, “I have observedthat in the country between the nations which are atwar with each other the greatest numbers of wild ani-mals are to be found.” The absence of human hunterswould account not only for the abundance of game but(as noted earlier) for its tameness.

The Columbia corridor—a game sink—offered astriking contrast; in Lewis’s estimate it held a perma-nent population of 80,000 Indians whose hunting pres-sure significantly depressed the number of large gameanimals.15 In effect, the outbound Corps of Discoveryfound itself in a game sink during its time in the Co-lumbia watershed and while traversing the mountainseast of the Continental Divide.

As an experienced hunter, Lewis knew the impor-tance of different kinds of forage to the health and abun-dance of game animals. In North Dakota and Montanahe noted elk feeding on sagebrush and willow. At FortClatsop on February 4, 1806, he observed that elk graz-ing on still-green grass and rushes in open areas are “inmuch better order” than those foraging in “woodycountry” where their food is “huckle berry bushes, fern,and an evergreen shrub which resembles the lorel.”

Elk are generalists when it comes to feeding. Onestudy has shown that Rocky Mountain elk graze on atleast 142 species of forbs, ferns, and lichens as well as77 species of grass and grasslike species, and browse on111 species of shrubs and trees.15 Elks’ ability to subsiston such a variety of plants contributed to their widerange, and their occurrence along most of Lewis andClark’s route was important to the expedition’s suc-cess. Wapiti (to use Barton’s preferred name) providedfood and clothing, and as Stephen Ambrose has noted,“the cord that bound body and soul together at FortClatsop was made of elk.”16

Foundation member Ken Walcheck, a wildlife biologist andhunter, lives in Bozeman, Montana. Now retired, he spent 21years with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

EN D N O T E S

1Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and

Clark Expedition (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1904-5), Vol.7, p. 249.2Jack Lyon and Jack Ward Thomas, “Elk: Rocky Mountain Maj-esty,” Restoring America’s Wildlife (Washngton, D.C.: Depart-ment of the Interior, 1987), pp. 145-159.3Peter Matthiessen, Wildlife in America (New York: Viking Press,1959), p. 62.4Larry D. Bryant and Chris Maser, “Classification and Distri-bution of North American Elk: Ecology and Management,”Wildlife Management Institute (Harrisburg: Stackpole Books,1982), pp. 1-60. The other two subspecies are Merriam’s elk andthe Tule elk.5Ernest Thompson Seton, The Life Histories of Northern Ani-mals (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), p. 41.6John B. Kirsch and Kenneth R. Greer, Bibliography: Wapiti andEuropean Red Deer (Montana Fish and Game Department,Game Management Division, Special Report No. 2, 1968), p. 1;Robert M. McClung, Lost Wild America: The Story of Our Ex-tinct and Vanishing Wild Life (Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books,1993), pp. 52-53.7Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), Vol.2, p. 306. All quotations or references to journal entries in theensuing text are from Moulton, Vols. 2-11, by date, unless oth-erwise indicated. Moulton, citing E. Raymond Hall, The Mam-mals of North America (New York: John Wiley and Sones,1981), Vol. 2, pp. 1084-86, states the explorers “did not actu-ally see an elk until July 14,” referring to an entry in the jorunalof Patrick Gass. But this arguable, since the region’s tall-grassprairies and wooden bottomlands would certainly have sup-ported elk.8Herbert S. Zim and Donald F. Hoffmeister, Mammals: A Guideto Familiar American Species (New York: Golden Press, 1955),p. 136.9Harvest numbers hould be regarded as minimum, since the vari-ous journals differ on dates and numbers of elk killed. Someentries refer to bucks killed, without stating whether the animalwas a deer or elk.10Gass’s entry of March 20, 1806. Moulton, Vol. 10, p. 199.11Elliott Coues, History of the Expedition Under the Commandof Lewis and Clark (New York: Dover Publications, 1965; re-print of 1893 edition), Vol. 3, p. 845.12Olaus J. Murie, The Elk of North America (Harrisburg, Penn.:Stackpole Co., 1951), pp. 47-48.13Craig S. and Pamela R. Knowles, A Bibliography of Literatureand Papers Pertaining to Presettlement Wildlife and Habitat onMontana and Adjacent Areas (Missoula, Mont.: U.S. Forest Ser-vice, 1993).14Paul S. Martin and Christine R. Szuter, “War Zones and GameSinks in Lewis and Clark’s West,” Conservation Biology, Feb-ruary 1999 (Vol. 13, No. 1), pp. 36-45.15Ibid.16Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage (New York: Simon& Schuster, 1996), p. 322.

� �


Reviews

George Drouillard: no white man’s Indian

L ike the mighty Missouri River, themomentum of the upcoming Lewis

and Clark Bicentennial is an unstop-pable force. One component of thissurging flow is the recently reworkedand revised opera Riversong. Founda-tion members may recall experiencingan earlier version of this thoughtful andmoving production 10 years ago at the22nd annual meeting in Lewiston,Idaho. Since then, the creators ofRiversong, lyricist Tim Rarick andcomposer Tom Cooper, have continuedto explore the Lewis and Clark saga,and in this updated version their in-creased familiarity comes through—sometimes dramatically but more of-ten subtly, capturing by mood and am-biance the zeitgeist of the early 1800s.

When creating the original versionof Riversong, Rarick and Cooper trav-eled the Lewis and Clark Trail from St.Louis to the Pacific. In the interveningyears, says Rarick, visits to places suchas Charlottesville, Philadelphia, Wash-ington, D.C., and perhaps most impor-tant, the site of Grinder’s Stand, whereLewis died on the Natchez Trace, have“made a substantial impact on the newscript.” One example is the addition ofa critical scene at Grinder’s Stand; theartists felt it was “dramatically impor-tant to hear the sounds of that place, toget a sense of its isolation, and to hearthe uncaring sound of Mrs. Grinder’svoice.” Other additions shed light onLewis’s relationship with his men, in-cluding a scene in which, after MosesReed’s court martial and his running ofthe gauntlet, Lewis “attended his

Riversong in its 1990 production

In the works: a newversion of RiversongI ’ve long been an admirer of George

Drouillard, the civilian interpreter andhunter, as one of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition’s superstars on whom thecaptains always relied ina pinch. His fluency insign language and hisawesome shooting skillsand coolness underpressure made him, nextto Lewis and Clarkthemselves, arguably theCorps of Discovery’smost critical member.

Drouillard was amétis, the half-breed off-spring of a French-Ca-nadian father and aShawnee mother. Yetlike most devotees ofLewis and Clark I have always picturedhim as white—in part, no doubt, fromthe way the captains in their journalsanglicized his name as “Drewyer.”

Now that I’ve read James AlexanderThom’s historical novel Sign-Talker,however, my image of Drouillard is agood deal more complex. Thom hastaken what he can from the scant his-torical record and created a compellingportrait, however imaginary andcounter-assumptive, of a man more In-dian than white. His abilities as a hunterare grounded in reverence for the ani-mals he must kill to sustain his life. ToDrouillard nature is mystical and ani-mate: the bears on the Missouri talk toeach other and warn of the invadingwhite men pushing upriver.

But like Meriwether Lewis Moon,the protagonist in Peter Matthiessen’snovel At Play in the Fields of the Lord,Thom’s Drouillard is an Indian trappedbetween cultures. He is distrusting and

even contemptuous of whites yet doestheir bidding time and again, signing onwith the Corps of Discovery (albeitrefusing to enlist as a soldier, therebyretaining a measure of independence)and later with Manuel Lisa’s fateful ef-fort to establish a fur-trading empire onthe upper Missouri. On the journey tothe Pacific, Drouillard comes to respectand ultimately to like William Clark forhis level-headedness, fairness, and ami-able temperament. His take on Lewis—

“that strange, hard,troubled man,” with hisprickly pride and high-handed ways—is alto-gether different. AsThom tells it, Drouil-lard on more than oneoccasion bails out Lewisfrom disaster during ne-gotiations with the Indi-ans on whose generos-ity the expedition de-pends. It is a view ofLewis sure to provokehis partisans.

One of the advan-tages historical novelists have over his-torians is a license to get inside theirsubjects’ heads and to create situationsthat add to their humanity and areader’s capacity to connect with them.Thom, for example, gives Drouillard asex life. He takes several Indian lovers,but unlike the slam-bam encountersbetween most of the other men and thewomen who offer them their favors, hisrelationships are based on affection andunderstanding. Clark too has his dalli-ances, but like Drouillard’s they are dis-creet. Lewis abstains.

I can quibble with parts of this novel.York, for one, comes across as a ratherstock character, however sympathetic.But overall, Sign-Talker is sure to joinFrom Sea to Shining Sea, Thom’s sagaof the family of William and GeorgeRogers Clark, in the annals of distin-guished historical fiction relating toThomas Jefferson’s great enterprise.

—J. I. Merritt

Sign-Talker: The Adventure ofGeorge Drouillard on the Lewisand Clark ExpeditionJames Alexander ThomBallantine Books466 pages / $25.95 hardcover


wounds with the touch of a father forhis injured son.”

For those unfamiliar with Riversong,the story begins with William Clarklearning of the death of MeriwetherLewis from newspaper accounts whiletraveling through Kentucky to Fin-castle, Virginia. Using flashbacks fromthe mind of Clark, the opera over itstwo-hour, two-act length explores hisstruggles to understand and ultimatelyaccept his close friend’s death. Rarick’sbeautiful prose is especially movingwhen sung to Cooper’s powerfulscores. Riversong hones closely to thefacts as we know them, but its truestrength is in taking the two nearlymythical figures of Lewis and Clarkand turning them into real people, withreal emotions, and letting the audienceshare those feelings. In this it excels.

Some people may find the term “op-era” daunting, and its definition can beslippery. Riversong certainly qualifiesas opera—a serious story set to musicand verse—but its style is simple andnever overbearing. Although no defi-nite productions of Riversong are cur-rently scheduled, Rarick and Cooperare exploring a number of promisingleads as the bicentennial approaches.I’m hopeful we will all have an oppor-tunity to experience this revised workin its full visual and aural splendor.

The revised Riversong is not the onlyoperatic work being developed for thebicentennial. Two others are by theteam of Bruce Trinkley, a professor ofmusic at Penn State University, andlyricist Jason Charnesky: York and theVoyage of Discovery and The Last Voy-age of Captain Meriwether Lewis, adramatic cantata. At the University ofMissouri-Columbia, the trio of EricDillner (concept and artistic adminis-trator), Michael Ching (composer), andHugh Moffatt (librettist) is at work onLewis and Clark: The Opera.

—Jay Rasmussen

An audiocassette ($12.95) and script ($9.95)of the 1990 version of Riversong are avail-able from Woodland Enterprises, Inc., 310N. Main St. Moscow, ID 83843 (208-882-4767;www.woodlandgifts.com).

If you’re a regular reader of WPO, youmost likely have a better-than-aver-

age knowledge of the Corps of Discov-ery. And if you have friends who arepuzzled with your obsession withLewis and Clark, you may want to rec-ommend to them Tra-velin’ on the Lewis &Clark Trail, a 50-minutevideo that offers an en-gaging and informativeintroduction to thiswonderful story.

Clay S. Jenkinson,well known for his liv-ing-history portrayals ofMeriwether Lewis andThomas Jefferson, pro-duced the video and(playing himself) servesas its on-scene narratorand co-host with actorJames Whitmore. Schol-ars Stephen Ambrose,Gary Moulton, andHarry Fritz provide enlightening com-mentary about the Lewis and ClarkExpedition as its steps are retraced byan archetypal American family of fourwho drive, canoe, and ride horseback

Video trippin’ with the Corps of Discoveryalong portions of the Lewis and ClarkTrail from St. Louis and Camp Duboisto Fort Clatsop. It’s a full itinerary,filled with magnificent scenery andwith stops along the way at CouncilBluffs, Pierre, Bismarck, and other fa-miliar places. The family takes in sev-eral summer festivals, where reenactorsconvey a sense of the expedition’s dailylife, and visits archaeologist Ken Kars-mizki’s dig for artifacts near Great Falls.I liked the comment by the family’steenage girl as she stands at Lemhi Passand imagines how Lewis felt when he

saw, instead of thehoped-for ColumbiaRiver, endless waves ofmountains: “He musthave been, like, totallybummed.” A bit jar-ring, perhaps, but onthe mark.

Travelin’ on the Lewis& Clark Trail is a livelyshorthand exposure tothis epic tale andshould lead those justlearning about the ex-pedition to explore it inmuch greater depththrough books and theLewis and Clark jour-nals themselves. The

video is available through Empire forLiberty/Marmarth Press, 6015 S. Vir-ginia St., Suite 458, Reno, NV 89502(888-828-2853).

—Larry Epstein

Travelin’ on theLewis & Clark TrailClay S. Jenkinson (producer/co-host)Empire for Liberty

$19.95

We recommend two recent travelbooks for the shelves of Corps of

Discovery buffs: the second edition—“completely revised and expanded”—of Traveling the Lewis & Clark Trail,by Julie Fanselow (Falcon Press, 321pages, $15.95 paperback) and America’sNational Historic Trails, by KathleenAnn Cordes, with photos by JaneLammers (University of Oklahoma

Press, 370 pages, $19.95 paperback,).Fanselow’s book is an update of her

1993 Falcon guide of a slightly differ-ent title, and like the original it is a fontof information for anyone planning avisit along the L&C Trail. A model ofgood travel writing, it mixes historicalnarrative with descriptions of the trailtoday and notable side trips, tips ontravel and itinerary planning, and list-

Two new travel guides are “musts”


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$175, plus $10 shipping.

Personal check, Visa, MasterCard,and American Express accepted.

ings (with phone numbers, addresses,and in some cases Web sites) of motels,B&Bs, campgrounds, restaurants,Lewis and Clark festivals, and outfit-ters of river and pack trips and motor-ized tours. I found it helpful, for ex-ample, in sorting out options for aguided trip on the Wild and Scenic Riv-ers portion of the upper Missouri.Fanselow lays out available optionswith a listing of every outfitter operat-ing in the region and goes into detailon three (River Odysseys West, Mis-souri River Outfitters, and CanoeMontana). Traveling the Lewis & ClarkTrail is comprehensive and current andhas garnered endorsements from theLewis and Clark Bicentennial Counciland writers Dayton Duncan andStephen Ambrose.

America’s National Historic Trails isbroader in scope, and its coverage ofthe 10 other routes constituting theNational Historic Trails system is a use-ful reminder that there are pathways atleast as important to our national heri-tage as the one traced by the Corps ofDiscovery. The 12 trails currently partof the NHT network are the JuanBautista de Anza, Overmountain Vic-tory, Lewis and Clark, Santa Fe, Trailof Tears, Oregon, California, MormonPioneer, Pony Express, Nez Perce,Iditarod, and Selma to Montgomery.All are covered here. The section foreach trail consists of a brief overview, aconcise historical narrative, thumbnailsketches of principal historic characters(Sacagawea gets a nod, along with thecaptains), and a description of the trailtoday, with points of special interest (82are listed for the L&C Trail). Photog-raphy, cartography, and the book’s de-sign and organization are first-rate.Both the author and the photographertraveled the length of each trail—onfoot and by car, dogsled, raft, kayak,or bush plane—and the thoroughnessshows. Pedants (including this one)may note one minor historical error inthe Lewis and Clark text: ThomasJefferson’s aborted scheme to sendFrench botanist André Michaux westwas hatched in 1793, not 1801.

—J.I.M.


G.S. MACMANUShalf page

CHARLES FRITZPUBLISHING

half page


1/12 pageWOODLAND

ENTERPRISES

TRAVEL & EXCURSIONS

MONTANA BY AIR LLC offers sight-seeing tours of northern Montana. Thisis a time-efficient way to see the remotesites of the Lewis & Clark Trail such asthe White Cliffs, Camp Disappoint-ment, and the Fight Site. For more in-formation call Rick Geiger (1-406-873-5709). You can also find us on our Website (www.montanabyair.com).

BOOKS

FOR SALE: Lewis and Clark atlas byMoulton, Volume 1, First Edition. Lookfor me, Keith Gaumer, at the Dillonmeeting, or call 515-961-3384.

CRAFTS

PRESERVE theLewis and Clarkstory in stitches!Eight Lewis andClark counted crossstitch kits from ThePosy Collection, in-cluding the new Sacagawea Coin kit. Seethem at www.posycollection.com orsend SASE for flyer. The Posy collection,105 Hickory Drive, Murray, KY [email protected].

CLASSIFIED RATES: 50 cents per word forFoundation members; 75 cents perword for nonmembers; $10 minimum.Address, city, state, and Zip code countas one word. Payment must accompanyads. Goods and services offered mustrelate to Lewis and Clark. Send ads withpayment (checks only, please) to JimMerritt, Editor, WPO, 51 N. Main St.,Pennington, NJ 08534.

CLASSIFIEDS

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gan. He was a pilot for Pan AmericanAirways and later worked for Boeing andas an engineering consultant.

Marlene “Maliyah” Tendoy Poog, an87-year-old Lemhi Shoshone who

was a great grandniece of Sacagawea, diedon March 26 in Fort Hall, Idaho. Poogwas a great granddaughter of Came-ahwait, Sacagawea’s brother, and a grand-daughter of Tendoy, a noted LemhiShoshone chief.

According to the Idaho State Journal,Poog, a long-time resident of Fort Hall,was pleased that Sacagawea had been re-cently honored by her image on the new$1 coin. A spiritual leader and healer, shemaintained her native language and tra-ditions despite a childhood spent partlyin a boarding school that suppressed herIndian culture. ■

Passages

George Tweney, Maliyah Poog

George H. Tweney, a long-time mem-ber of the Foundation and a former

member of its board of directors, died ofa brain tumor on May 7 at age 84. A resi-dent of Seattle, he served as vice chairmanof the Washington State Lewis and ClarkTrail Committee.

A noted collector of rare books relat-ing to Lewis and Clark, Tweney in 1970found and purchased a one-of-a-kindcopy of the Lewis and Clark journalstranscribed in 1895 by Elliott Coues. Herelated the story of that find in an articlein the February 1993 WPO. He recentlysold his book collection to Lewis andClark College, in Portland, Oregon.

Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,Tweney attended college in Ontario andwas a member of the Canadian Olympictrack team of 1932. He earned degrees inaeronautical engineering at the Universityof Detroit and the University of Michi-

Briefings

Fort Mandan restoration

The U.S. Bank in Washburn, North Da-kota, has contributed $50,000 to the

North Dakota Lewis & Clark Bicenten-nial Foundation to help in the restorationof the replica of Fort Mandan. The rep-lica was constructed 28 years ago, and itwill be refurbished by 2003, in time forthe Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.

HUBBARD AWARDThe Clearwater/Snake Lewis and ClarkBicentennial Committee is this year’s re-cipient of the Harry Hubbard Award,presented by the National Lewis andClark Bicentennial Council to recognizeoutstanding efforts by an individual ororganization in promoting the bicenten-nial. The committee was recognized forits Passages 1999 and 2000 gatherings heldin Lewiston, Idaho.

GENEALOGY CERTIFICATEThe Foundation’s Genealogy Commit-tee has launched an effort to compile adatabase of direct descendants of theCorps of Discovery. The committee willsend a certificate to those establishing

their relationships to members of theL&C expedition, and any documentationthey provide will be kept in the Foun-dation’s archives. The committee’s data-base includes descendants living and de-ceased. For details, contact DonnaMasterson (909-877-3392).

YANKTON GATHERINGYankton, South Dakota, will host its thirdannual Lewis and Clark Festival on Au-gust 26-27. Festivities will include living-history encampments, vendors, and trad-ers. For details, see www.lewisandclarktrail.com/yanktonlcfest.htm or call402-667-7873, ext. 3248.

WEB UPDATESNew topics on the Web site DiscoveringLewis & Clark (www.lewis-clark.org)include “Mapping Terra Incognitae,” byJohn Logan Allen, plus Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara cultures, grizzly bears in the Bit-terroots, and the latest word on the eula-chon. For information about resourcesavailable for bicentennial projects, checkwww.nps.gov/lecl/grants.htm. ■

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Full page: 71/4 X 91/2 $5002/3rd vertical: 43/4 X 91/2 $3351/2 horizontal: 71/4 X 45/8 $2501/3rd square: 43/4 X 45/8 $1671/3rd vertical: 21/4 X 91/2 $1671/6th vertical: 21/4 X 45/8 $841/12th: 21/4 X 23/16 $42

Address inquiries to Cari Karns, P.O.Box 3434, Great Falls, MT 59403.Tel: 406-454-1234/fax:406-771-9237.E-mail: [email protected].

WPO DISPLAY ADS

Bicentennial bust

My great-great grandmotherwas Jane Lewis Anderson.Jane was the sister of

Captain Meriwether Lewis. I havealways admired my great-great-great uncle and I am proud ofmy kinship with one ofAmerica’s greatest heroes. Ihave often wished I couldhave been with him on thatwonderful adventure whose200th anniversary I amhappily anticipating. Iwondered, Whatcould I do personallyto commemorate thegreat event?

In the fall of 1999 itwas my good fortune to meetDr. John Lanzalotti, a mostremarkable person. Hehappens to be a surgeon, butmore important he is a gifted artist andsculptor who specializes in images ofhistoric figures: William and Mary,George Washington, ThomasJefferson, Napoleon, John Marshall,among others.

Lanzalotti’s family is originallyfrom Tuscany, and I suspect hischromosomes contain genes from

Michelangelo. After seeing examplesof his work I commissioned him tocreate a bust of Lewis based on acontemporary portrait by Charles de

Saint-Mémin; I knew this to be anaccurate representation of Lewis,for the artist used a prism toproject his subject’s image ontopaper for tracing.

The completed bust has fullymet my expectations. A bronze

with a rich mahogany patina, itweighs some 50 pounds

and is 20 inches high.It personifies thequalities that enabled

Lewis to accomplish somuch: determination,

endurance, intellect. For me itis the perfect commemorative.

William Clark was also anAmerican hero and he should

be remembered in a like manner.Lanzalotti would love to create a bustof Clark—all he needs is an “angel” tocommission it. Anyone interestedshould contact the sculptor at 3510Mott Lane, Williamsburg, VA 23185(757-253-1760). Copies of the Lewisbust are available from him, too.

—William M. Anderson

FOR THE RECORDThe May WPO “For the Record” (p. 34),which refers to an article in the August1999 issue, should have read “Jackson,”not “Jackson County,” Nebraska. ■

Chapter News

Idaho okays L&C license plateEfforts by the the Idaho Chapter (Boise)

have led to that state’s adoption of aL&C license plate featuring a likeness ofSacagawea, whose Lemhi Shoshones werenative to Idaho. The winning design wasentered by a prisoner at the Orofino De-partment of Corrections. The plates goon sale in January; proceeds will supportbicentennial projects.

KEELBOAT ON THE OHIOThe keelboat and crew of the DiscoveryExpedition (home base: St. Charles, Mis-souri) will tour the Ohio River Septem-ber 1-21, from Elizabeth, Pennsylvania,to Louisville, with 19 stops along the way.For details about the trip and plans fornext year, check www.lewisandclark.net.

IN PASSINGWe have two new Foundation chapters:Camp Creek (Bitterroot Valley, Mon-tana), and the Missouri River Basin (Ne-braska). For a copy of the Crimson BluffsChapter’s new newsletter, write 415 S.Front St., Townsend, MT 59644. ThePhiladelphia Chapter hosted the HomeFront Chapter (Charlottesville, Virginia)for a weekend visit to tour L&C sites ■

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Dispatches continued from page 40

Healing moment

casins, he offered a traditional prayerfor Jean Baptiste and talked aboutSacagawea’s self-sufficiency and respectfor the land as epitomizing the valuesof her people.

Rose Ann Abrahamson and her sis-ter Rozina spoke for the Lemhi Shos-hone. Roseann greeted the audience inher native tongue and in several of thelanguages spoken by Jean Baptiste (hewas fluent in at least five). AfterRozina read from a plaque placed atthe gravesite by her tribe, Rose Annoffered a prayer and invited us to forma compass-circle around the grave fora final ceremony and blessing: LemhiShoshone to the west, the Three Af-filiated Tribes to the east, the WesternShoshone to the north, and represen-tative whites, including myself, JoniBoyle, and Roger Wendlick, to thesouth. Rose Ann led her mother to thegranite gravestone. They lit some sa-cred cedar, and Rose Ann’s motherblessed the site with a prayer. RoseAnn then initiated a prayer from eachof the four assembled groups by pass-ing a sacred feather through the handsof an elder in each group. Capping theceremony, we lifted our arms to thecreator and thanked him for this heal-ing moment.

Jean Baptiste bridged different cul-tures, and in honoring him on this daywe became, at least for a time, four cul-tures united. Overhead, an eagle soaredagainst the deep blue sky and piercedthe desert air with its cry. ■


Dispatches continues on page 39

Dispatches

The Healing Moment

BY MICHELLE BUSSARD

Rededicating the grave of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau unites four cultures

Roger Wendlick was atthe wheel of his car, anddust roiled behind us as

we neared the gravesite, sevenmiles down a gravel road off theInterstate in this remote part ofeastern Oregon. “Better thanthe 17 miles it used to be be-fore we got a new sign out thereon Highway 95,” said Roger,squinting into the flaming redsunset.

He had wanted to check thatall was ready for the ceremonyscheduled for the next day, andwhen we arrived at the site ev-erything appeared in order. Theattention to last-minute detailwas typical of Roger, whosequiet but determined leadershiphad shepherded this project ofthe Foundation’s Oregon Chap-ter to refurbish and rededicatethe grave of Jean Baptiste Char-bonneau (“Pomp”), the son ofSacagawea.

As an infant Jean Baptiste had gone with Lewis and Clarkto the Pacific, and as a 61-year-old prospector on his way toMontana’s gold fields he had died on this high desert plateaunear the town of Danner on May 16, 1866. Now, 134 yearslater, we would be honoring that youngest member of theCorps of Discovery.

The next day, Saturday, June 24, the place came alive withsome 300 people who had come to pay their respects to JeanBaptiste in a gathering both solemn and festive. A stagetrimmed with bunting and a PA system had been carried inon the back of a pickup truck along with folding chairs andprograms. The celebrants included local ranchers (amongthem Bruce and Joni Boyle, on whose property the grave islocated), Foundation leaders and members of the Oregonand Idaho chapters who had invested, time, sweat, and moneyinto this project, and members of the Inskip family whoseancestors had laid Jean Baptiste to rest.

Most poignantly, the rededication brought together rep-resentatives of the tribes who claim Jean Baptiste’s mother,

Sacagawea, as their own: theLemhi Shoshone, the tribe ofher birth; her adopted tribe, theHidatsa (and their affiliates, theMandan and Arikara); and theWestern Shoshone, who haveagreed to take care of the site inperpetuity. These tribes havebeen quarreling for years overwhich of them is the rightfulheir to Sacagawea’s legacy, andtheir coming together in thispeaceful setting was symbolic ofa healing and reconciliation.

The ceremony kicked offwith the arrival of a vintagestagecoach hauled by six chest-nut horses and driven by localhistorian Mike Hanley flankedby an escort of cavalry re-enactors. Roger Wendlick, re-splendent in buckskins, servedas master of ceremonies. Presi-dent Keith Hay spoke for theOregon Chapter and DirectorJerry Garrett for the Founda-

tion. In keynote remarks, Al Furtwrangler of WillametteUniversity held up Jean Baptiste and Sacagawea—mother andchild—as symbols of peace, whose presence on the Lewisand Clark Expedition was key to the explorers’ ability tomake friends with the tribes they encountered. He drew aparallel between the new U.S. dollar coin on which they ap-pear and the Jefferson peace medals presented to the tribesby Lewis and Clark.

This was the first public event endorsed by the NationalLewis and Clark Bicentennial Council, and I felt proud tobe representing that organization as its executive director. Inthat capacity I made two offerings in the spirit of “life, death,and healing”: some ground rattle of a rattlesnake to sprinkleon the site and a purple cornflower from the Knife RiverIndian Villages to be held in trust by the Boyles, whose do-nation of the gravesite made all this possible.

Mandan Hidatsa Gail Baker represented the Three Affili-ated Tribes. Dressed in full headdress and blue-beaded moc-

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Gail Parker, Rose Ann Abrahamson, and an Inskip descendantat the new interpretive sign for Pomp’s gravesite

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