Free In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark by Wallace G. Lewis Page A

Pacific Ocean and return, 1804–1806. Large dots indicate locations of natural and historic sites and of Lewis and Clark interpretive centers.

    Since much of this book discusses events and commemorations held at various times and in various locations along Lewis and Clark’s route, it seems helpful to offer a linear and chronological description of the country and the Native American groups encountered, as well as the route’s relation to present-day communities and other locations. Furthermore, the summary here relates the path of Lewis and Clark to present-day highways, which provide access to the expedition’s historical sites and play a major role in the development of the National Historic Trail—the book’s central theme. 1
    During the summer of 1803, Meriwether Lewis took a specially constructed keelboat loaded with supplies down the Ohio River and picked up William Clark at his home in Clarksville, Indiana Territory. At Camp Wood on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River and near the mouth of the Missouri, the men of the expedition prepared for their journey and spent the winter. President Thomas Jefferson had informed Lewis that his main objective was “to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by its course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” In addition to finding portage between the headwaters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, the explorers were to observe and note topographical, botanical, mineralogical,meteorological, and zoological characteristics of the country they passed through. 2
    Lewis and Clark were particularly assiduous in this respect, filling their records of the journey with hundreds of descriptions of new plants and animals and landforms they encountered. Jefferson’s instructions also called for conferences and peacemaking among the tribes of the upper Missouri and included a list of social and cultural topics on which he wanted the explorers to collect information. Nearly fifty men comprised the initial party, although there would be some changes as a result of military discipline. A third of those who set out—some soldiers and river boatmen—returned from the Mandan Villages in North Dakota following the winter of 1804–1805 and did not continue to the Pacific Coast. For the first segment of the journey, the Corps of Discovery traveled in a fifty-five-foot keelboat equipped with oars and a sail and two pirogues or dugout canoes, one painted white and one red. 3
    On May 14, 1804, the Corps of Discovery left its winter quarters to join Captain Lewis—who had ridden overland from St. Louis—at the small village of St. Charles, where Interstate 70 now crosses the Missouri River just west of St. Louis. A few days later the expedition continued in a westerly direction. At La Charette, located near Marthasville, Missouri, at a site since washed away by the river, the men left behind the last Euro-American settlement they would see for nearly thirty months. [II, 253n5] For almost 400 miles (by river) they moved westward across the present state of Missouri, past the future sites of Jefferson City, Boonville, Lexington, and Independence and the mouths of the Osage, Moreau, and Chariton rivers and other tributaries. It was, and still is, lush country, described in the journals as fertile prairie interspersed with woodlands. At a point about halfway between Columbia and Boonville, where I-70 crosses the Missouri, William Clark first reported seeing a “buffalo Sign,” although another eleven weeks would pass before the group dined on a bison. [II, 282]
    West of Boonville and the Lamine River, the Missouri curves north and then southwest before continuing its generally westward course to Kansas City. In this bend the expedition passed a narrow elbow in the river at which a prominent