49 Fun Facts About Lewis and Clark

Which Great Plains animal did Lewis and Clark ship alive to President Jefferson in 1805?

A prairie dog. It went down the Missouri in a cage beside four live magpies and crates of skins and bones, survived months of travel, and was lodging with Jefferson by October.

What job did Meriwether Lewis hold when Jefferson chose him to lead the expedition?

The president's private secretary. Jefferson had hired the young army officer in 1801 partly because he knew the western country, then sent him to Philadelphia's scientists to be tutored for the journey.

From which winter camp on the Illinois side of the Mississippi did the Corps set out in May 1804?

Camp Dubois. Clark built it on the east bank partly because the west bank was still in foreign hands: the American flag went up there only in March 1804, two months before the boats set out.

Clark waited at which Missouri River town for Lewis to ride in and join the boats in May 1804?

St. Charles. Clark's men spent five days at dances, dinners and a church service in the mostly French-Canadian village of about 450 people, and pushed off the afternoon after Lewis arrived.

Near which city was Lewis and Clark's keelboat built in the summer of 1803?

Pittsburgh. A drunken boatbuilder kept Lewis waiting six weeks while a drought drained the Ohio River, so when he finally cast off on 31 August the water was at a record low.

What breed was Seaman, the dog Lewis bought before setting off?

Newfoundland. Seaman earned his $20 price one night in 1805, when a buffalo bull charged through the sleeping camp and Lewis credited the dog with turning it away from the tents.

Which Philadelphia physician taught Lewis medicine before the trip?

Benjamin Rush. He also supplied 600 of his mercury-laced laxative pills, and traces of that mercury in an old latrine pit later let archaeologists confirm one of the expedition's campsites.

Which weapon, fired without gunpowder, did Lewis show off to astonish the nations he met?

An air rifle. At its first demonstration a bystander set it off by accident and the ball grazed the temple of a woman forty yards away; Lewis thought she was dead until she revived a minute later.

The Jefferson peace medals Lewis and Clark carried showed his portrait on the front and which image on the back?

Two clasped hands. One wore an officer's braided cuff, the other a chief's wristband, with the words 'Peace and Friendship'; in American eyes a chief who took the medal was accepting US sovereignty.

Which ration from Philadelphia fed Lewis and Clark's starving men in the Bitterroot Mountains?

Portable soup. By mid-September 1805 a few canisters of the boiled-down broth and a little bear oil were almost all the food left, and the men had already killed and eaten their colts.

Sergeant Floyd, the only member of the Corps to die on the expedition, probably died of what?

Acute appendicitis. Clark called it 'bilious colic', but doctors now think Floyd's appendix had burst, which was almost always fatal in 1804; his last request was that Clark write a letter for him.

In September 1804, Chief Black Buffalo defused an armed standoff between Lewis and Clark's men and which nation?

The Lakota. They wanted a toll before letting the boats pass; warriors seized a boat's cable, Clark drew his sword and Lewis called the crew to arms before Black Buffalo took the rope and ordered his men away.

Where did Lewis and Clark's expedition spend the winter of 1804–05?

Fort Mandan. The men built it of cottonwood logs beside the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, whose people brought corn and game to trade through weeks of weather far below zero.

What was the name of the French-Canadian fur trapper hired as interpreter, husband of Sacagawea?

Toussaint Charbonneau. At the helm when a squall tipped a boat in May 1805, he panicked while his wife calmly caught the light articles as they washed overboard; Lewis called him 'the most timid waterman in the world'.

Sacagawea was born into which nation?

Shoshone. Raiders had carried her off as a girl, and when the expedition reached her people in 1805 needing horses, the chief it had to bargain with turned out to be her own brother.

Which Montana landmark, where Clark carved his name in 1806, is named for Sacagawea's baby son?

Pompeys Pillar. Clark, who called the boy Pomp, named the sandstone butte 'Pompy's Tower' and cut his own name and the date into it, where visitors can still read them.

Where did Lewis and Clark's expedition first cross the Continental Divide?

Lemhi Pass. Just below the top, where the Missouri had shrunk to a brook, Private Hugh McNeal stood with a foot on each bank and thanked God he had lived to bestride the mighty river.

Which Cascade volcano did Clark first call 'Falls Mountain' before realising British sailors had already named it?

Mount Hood. Clark named it for the great falls of the Columbia nearby; only after passing it did the captains match it to the peak on British charts, named for Admiral Samuel Hood.

Which scarce supply did a few of Lewis and Clark's men spend weeks making at a separate winter camp?

Salt. Three men kept kettles of seawater boiling day and night near today's Seaside, Oregon, yet made barely a gallon a day; Lewis called it 'a very tedious operation'.

In November 1805 the captains polled the whole party, York and Sacagawea included, to decide what?

Where to spend the winter. Clark tallied the choice of York, the man he enslaved, beside the soldiers', and noted that Sacagawea wanted a place with plenty of wapato roots to eat.

What did Lewis and Clark name the stockade they built near modern Astoria, Oregon, for the winter of 1805–06?

Fort Clatsop. The men named it for the Clatsop people living nearby, and on leaving in March 1806 Lewis gave the fort and its furniture to their chief, Coboway, in thanks for his kindness.

What was the main food of Lewis and Clark's party during its wet winter on the Pacific coast?

Elk. Christmas dinner in 1805 was elk 'so much spoiled that we ate it through mere necessity', and by spring the men had sewn the hides into hundreds of pairs of moccasins for the journey home.

In January 1806 Sacagawea insisted on joining a trek to the coast to see the ocean and which stranded animal?

A whale. She told the captains it was very hard, after travelling so far, to be kept from the 'great waters' and the 'monstrous fish'; they arrived to find only its skeleton, and bought 300 pounds of blubber.

Lewis wrote that he would 'rather fight two Indians than one' of which animal?

Grizzly bear. A wounded one had just chased a hunter half a mile, and a month later another ran Lewis himself into a river after he forgot to reload his rifle.

While exploring the Marias River country on the way home, Lewis's party killed two men of which nation?

The Blackfeet. Eight young men camped with Lewis's four and tried at first light to take their guns and horses; after the killings the Americans rode more than 100 miles in a day to get away.

Why did Pierre Cruzatte apparently shoot Lewis on an August 1806 hunt?

He mistook him for an elk. Cruzatte, blind in one eye and short-sighted in the other, fired at a figure in brown leather among the willows, then denied it; Lewis spent days lying face down in a boat.

In which river town did Lewis and Clark's journey end in September 1806, to three cheers from the bank?

St. Louis. The men fired three rounds as the town came into sight and the crowd on the shore cheered back; before the day was out Lewis was writing to tell Jefferson they had reached the Pacific and returned.

Which power repeatedly sent armed parties across the Plains to intercept and arrest Lewis and Clark's expedition?

Spain. Tipped off by James Wilkinson, a US general on its payroll, it sent Pedro Vial north from New Mexico in 1804; he reached the Pawnee villages only after the boats had passed, and later attempts failed too.

Clark's map corrected charts that drew which western chain as one ridge?

The Rocky Mountains. Jefferson expected one easy ridge between two rivers; Clark's map, drawn by 1810 and published in 1814, showed a tangle of ranges instead.

Which bird, taken alive in 1806, did Lewis and Clark judge 'the largest bird of North America'?

California condor. Two hunters wounded one near the mouth of the Columbia and carried it in alive; it weighed 25 pounds even in poor condition, and its head was sketched into the journal.

Which meat, bought from Columbia River villages, did Lewis call 'an agreeable food' though Clark wrote that he still disliked it?

Dog. With game scarce the party bought dogs from the river villages again and again; Lewis came to prefer the meat to lean venison, though his own dog Seaman was never on the menu.

Nicholas Biddle, who wrote Lewis and Clark's 1814 history, later ran which institution?

The national bank. As president of the Bank of the United States he fought Andrew Jackson in the 'Bank War' of the 1830s; twenty years earlier his name was left off the expedition's history, which credits another editor.

After Lewis and Clark's expedition, what reward did York, the man Clark enslaved, receive for his service?

Nothing. Every other man got double pay and 320 acres; when York asked for his freedom, Clark refused, writing that he did not think 'his services has been so great'.

Which nation fed Lewis and Clark's starving men after the Bitterroot crossing and kept their horses safe all winter?

The Nez Perce. Some warriors are said to have wanted to kill the weak, well-armed strangers, until Watkuweis, an old woman once helped by white traders, told them: 'Do them no harm.'

Which explorer crossed mainland North America to the Pacific in 1793, before Lewis and Clark?

Alexander Mackenzie. Jefferson read his account of the crossing in the summer of 1802, saw in it a British plan to control the fur trade of the far West, and hurried forward his own expedition.

Which institution founded by Benjamin Franklin became the keeper of Lewis and Clark's original journals?

The American Philosophical Society. The captains' notebooks lay there largely forgotten until the naturalist Elliott Coues rediscovered them and brought out a new edition in 1893, 79 years after the first.

Which Stephen Ambrose bestseller of 1996 retold the story of Meriwether Lewis and the expedition?

Undaunted Courage. Jefferson praised the man he chose in almost those words: 'Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert.'

Which Oregon city staged a great exposition in 1905 to mark the centennial of Lewis and Clark's journey?

Portland. Suffragists raised the money for a bronze Sacagawea, cast from Oregon copper and unveiled at the fair; the statue was later moved to the city's Washington Park.

What post did Jefferson give Lewis in 1807 as a reward for the expedition?

Governor of the Louisiana Territory. The post undid him: Washington questioned his spending of public money, and in 1809 he set out for the capital to defend his accounts and died on the way.

In which state did Meriwether Lewis die of gunshot wounds in 1809, at an inn on the Natchez Trace?

Tennessee. He was riding to Washington to defend his accounts when he stopped at Grinder's Stand; Jefferson and Clark both accepted that it was suicide, but the argument over murder has never ended.

In which colony was Meriwether Lewis born in 1774?

Virginia. He was born near Charlottesville, a neighbour of Jefferson's, spent part of his boyhood on the Georgia frontier after his father died, and came home in his teens to run the family plantation.

Which federal post did William Clark hold from 1822 into the last year of his life?

Superintendent of Indian Affairs. He had governed the Missouri Territory from 1813, but voters turned him down for governor of the new state in 1820, and he took the federal post two years later.

Which Montana river did Clark name for Julia Hancock, his future wife?

The Judith. Clark, who called her Judith, gave her name to a clear tributary of the Missouri in May 1805, nearly three years before he went east to marry her; their first son was named Meriwether Lewis Clark.

What was William Clark's actual army rank on the expedition, though the men knew him as 'Captain'?

Lieutenant. The War Department refused Lewis's request to make his partner a captain, so the two kept the commission secret from the men for the whole journey; the promotion finally came in 2001.

Which Le Page du Pratz book did Lewis borrow, carry to the Pacific and return in 1807?

The History of Louisiana. One of Lewis's tutors lent him the copy in June 1803; four years later he handed it back with a note inside saying it had been 'conveyed by me to the Pacific ocean'.

Why did Lewis and Clark wait nearly a month at Camp Chopunnish in spring 1806?

Deep mountain snow. Lewis called the Bitterroots 'that icy barrier which separates me from my friends and country'; the party set off in June anyway and had to turn back before a second try succeeded.

Which US coin marked Lewis and Clark's bicentennial with the words 'Ocean in view!'?

The nickel. It already carried Jefferson, who had sent the expedition, and got four special designs in 2004 and 2005; the Mint corrected Clark's spelling, since he had written 'Ocian'.

Lewis and Clark's men celebrated 4 July 1805 by finishing the last of which supply?

Liquor. Lewis shared out the last of the spirits, the fiddle came out and the men danced until rain stopped them; they did not taste another drop for fourteen months, until they met a trader on the way home.

After splitting up in July 1806, Lewis and Clark planned to reunite at the mouth of which river?

The Yellowstone. Clark got there first, found the mosquitoes unbearable and moved on downriver, leaving a note behind; Lewis read it days later and caught up with him on 12 August.