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 UNVEILING EXERCISES 
 
 LEWIS-CLARK STATUE 
 
 CHARLOTTESVILLE 
 VIRGINIA 
 
LEWIS-CLARK STATUE 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES KECK 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT 
 
 The Gift of Paul Goodloe Mclnlhe, of Charlottesville 
 The Work of Charles Keck, of New York 
 
 Height of pedestal of Balfour Pink Granite, fourteen feet, two inches 
 Height of bronze figures, eight feet, four inches 
 
 The reliefs on the pedestal represent the Pacific slope, with the ocean 
 in contact. On the front, or western panel, are the American eagle, the 
 seals of the United States and the State of Virginia, the names of the 
 explorers : 
 
 MERIWETHER LEWIS- 1 774-1809 
 WILLIAM CLARK- 1770-1838 
 
 Then follows an inscription by Dr. Edwin A. Alderman : 
 
 BOLD AND FARSEEING PATHFINDERS 
 WHO CARRIED THE FLAG OF THE 
 YOUNG REPUBLIC TO THE WESTERN 
 OCEAN AND REVEALED AN UNKNOWN 
 EMPIRE TO THE USES OF MANKIND 
 
 Below the inscription are the thirteen stars of the original thirteen 
 States, and beneath them the statement : 
 
 A TERRITORY OF 385,000 SQUARE MILES WAS ADDED TO THE 
 COUNTRY BY THE EFFORTS OF THESE MEN • AN AREA LARGER 
 THAN THE THEN EXISTING SIZE OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Around the base of the bronze figures are bas-reliefs of Lewis and 
 Clark entering a council of Indians ; the Indian guide, Sacagawea, return- 
 ing to her tribe ; Indians admiring the huge negro of the party ; an Indian 
 dance ; a buffalo hunt in which Lewis and Clark joined. 
 
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THE UNVEILING 
 
 of the 
 
 LEWIS-CLARK STATUE 
 
 at 
 
 MIDWAY PARK 
 
 in the 
 
 City of Charlottesville, Virginia 
 
 November Twenty-One, Nineteen Hundred Nineteen 
 
 at Three O'clock in the Afternoon 
 
 Being a Record of the Exercises attending the Unveiling 
 Edited by W. M. FORREST 
 
 Published by 
 
 THE CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE 
 
 1919 
 
n 
 
 By TrckQsfer 
 
 JUN 1 1920 
 
( 
 
 Q The Program 
 
 *? 
 ^ 
 
 5^ 
 
 Chairman 
 
 W. M. Forrest 
 
 President Charlottesville City Council 
 
 Chorus of School Children 
 "America " 
 
 Prayer 
 
 Rev. George L. Petrie, D. D. 
 
 Pastor of Charlottesville Presbyterian Church 
 
 Presentation of Statue 
 
 President Edwin Anderson Alderman 
 
 of the University of Virginia 
 
 Unveiling of the Statue 
 
 The Work of Charles Keck, Sculptor 
 
 Miss Virginia Mclntire 
 
 Acceptance of the Statue 
 Hon. R. T. W. Duke, Jr. 
 
 Chorus of School Children 
 "America, the Beautiful " 
 
 Historical Discourse 
 Hon. Armistead Churchill Gordon 
 
 Benediction 
 
The Exercises 
 
 After the singing of "America" by a thousand children of the 
 city PubHc Schools, Dr. Petrie ofifered the following prayer: 
 
 O God, we recognize Thy presence and Thy overruling prov- 
 idence. We are indebted to Thee for all our blessings. We 
 thank Thee for this fair land by Thy providence our own, ref- 
 uge for the oppressed, to which lovers of liberty have ever 
 turned with hope, in which they have ever found freedom's 
 choicest gifts, and where they have made their happy homes. 
 
 We thank Thee that our forefathers from their vast estates, 
 which were washed by the tides of the great Atlantic Sea, 
 pressed inward and onward to the unmeasured treasures of ex- 
 tended plains, great mountain ranges and spreading valleys of 
 fertility and beauty, extracting from them Nature's hidden 
 wealth. 
 
 We thank Thee that, moved by a dauntless spirit of adven- 
 ture and exploration, undeterred by stupendous difficulties, un- 
 afraid when confronted by great perils, enduring hardships and 
 privations, stimulated by high purposes, inspired by lofty ambi- 
 tion, their achievements have reached from sea to sea of this 
 great continent. Mountains and plains and valleys and rivers 
 today are paying merited tribute to their heroic lives. 
 
 We thank Thee that from our homes here, prompted by the 
 Sage of Albemarle, two of Albemarle's own sons with great 
 courage and invincible determination traversed this vast con- 
 tinent then a pathless wild, conquered the frowning mountains 
 and the far reaching plains, and successfully claimed and ef- 
 fectively secured by personal presence and asserted rights and 
 established proprietorship the vast northwest region for our 
 own, an empire in extent and a treasury of wealth. 
 
 We thank Thee that in these later days, on which our lives 
 have fallen, a son of Albemarle has risen to pay his tribute to 
 these heroic men of the days that are past, and has called on us 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 all to unite with him in recognizing the merit and perpetuating 
 the memory of splendid worth and splendid deed. 
 
 We thank Thee for this memorial that in massive granite 
 and bronze, graceful in beauty, elegant tracery and exquisite 
 workmanship, shall long preserve the memories that should 
 never die, and shall daily remind us amid life's hurried scenes, 
 that there are high ideals, to which we should ever look, and 
 great sacrifices which we should ever be willing to make for 
 the general good. 
 
 Help us to learn this lesgon well. Teach us, as we often shall 
 pass this beautiful work of human art, to lift to this monument 
 our eyes, and as we trace its lines or gaze upon its fascinating 
 beauty and symmetry, to be more and more deeply impressed 
 by the great truths for which it stands, with which it is in- 
 scribed, and which in the eloquence of impressive calm and 
 perfect silence it shall ever tell. 
 
 Especially, as it adorns the entrance of our beloved institu- 
 tion of youthful learning, may our children by it be impressed, 
 and may they learn to pay a due regard to the great and good 
 of other days, and to estimate aright the noble exploits of he- 
 roic men. May they be thus led to seek to make of their lives 
 that which is truly worth while, to attain the useful and the 
 beautiful, to seek honor by sacrifice, and to win plaudits by 
 service, to consecrate life to that which will redound to the 
 welfare of their country and mankind. 
 
 This prayer we offer in the name which is above all other 
 names. Amen. 
 
 The Chairman, Professor Forrest : 
 
 Fellow Citizens, this speakers' platform is honored to-day by 
 some who have no need to speak here. One such is Charles 
 Keck, the artist whose skill has wrought into enduring bronze 
 and stone the beauty and idealism which will soon be unveiled 
 — this monument to Lewis and Clark. With his masterpiece 
 before us it is needless for the sculptor to speak a word. An- 
 other, is our fellow citizen and benefactor, Paul Goodloe Mcln- 
 tire whose love for his native town has found expression in this 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 7 
 
 monument, and is flowering forth in many other gracious gifts 
 of rare beauty and service to the city. Where such deeds 
 abound no other voice is needed. 
 
 But his gift must be pubhcly presented to the City, and I have 
 the pleasure of announcing as spokesman for the donor, Presi- 
 dent Edwin Anderson Alderman of the University of Virginia. 
 
 Dr. Alderman : 
 
 Presentation Address. 
 
 We are gathered here today, in the peace and dignity of this 
 autumn landscape, in the central spot of an ancient community 
 rich in rare personalties and memories of great issues springing 
 out of its life, to celebrate an event of historic grandeur; to set 
 up before the eyes of the generations an object of everlasting 
 charm and grace ; and, to conclude a purpose of filial piety and 
 love. 
 
 Fitter voices than mine shall relate to you the epic story of 
 the purchase of the Louisiana territory by Thomas Jefferson 
 whose home, like a shrine, looms just yonder upon the eastern 
 horizon, and shall picture to you as figures of romance and ad- 
 venture Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they fought 
 their way across the shaggy continent in the strength of youth, 
 in the pride of toil, and in the passion of patriotism. 
 
 It is in accordance with the fitness of things that great world 
 figures should move here and there upon the stage of so impe- 
 rial a transaction. We see Napoleon Bonaparte, the last, let 
 us thank God, of the world conquerors, but not, as we know to 
 our sorrow, of the great world gamblers for power and domin- 
 ion — idriven partly by whim and partly by necessity and partly 
 by cunning and revenge, offering for a song to a newly born and 
 struggling republic an empire greater in extent and possibility 
 than the Europe of his ambitions. We see the common sense 
 of Thomas Jeft'erson prevailing over philosophical theories and 
 political misgivings, accepting and consummating this greatest 
 real estate transaction in all history, by which for the present 
 cost of the Woolworth building in New York a domain of 
 137,735, square miles was added to the American Republic now 
 
8 Unveiung Exercises 
 
 inhabited by over fifteen million English speaking people, pos- 
 sessing seven and a half billion dollars of taxable wealth. We 
 remark the patience of Robert Livingston, the calmness and 
 good counsel of James Monroe, the impotent rage of the Bona- 
 parte family, the just apprehension of William Pitt. We see 
 clearly what only the wisest of that time saw dimly — the mighty 
 shift brought about by this vast transfer of territory in the des- 
 tines of mankind and the fortunes of that compelling theory of 
 life which men were then just learning to name democracy. 
 
 One may well ask why this memorial — the work of the pa- 
 tient genius of a great artist whose presence here today adds sig- 
 nificance to the occasion, and the gift of the steadfast love of a 
 great citizen, should arise in its stateliness not to any of these 
 world figures but to two gallant young men, subalterns in the 
 armies of the young nation, who set out five score and fifteen 
 years ago at the command of their neighbor, and friend, the 
 President of the United States, to break paths through pathless 
 woods, to voyage down vast unsailed rivers, to battle with the 
 savage and the beast, to use science in dominion over nature, 
 to stake their lives upon the steadiness of their muscles, their 
 mental adroitness and spirit of humanity, to endure hunger and 
 cold and privation for the sake of their country, and to emerge 
 after three years of silence their heroic task performed and a 
 new Empire. revealed to the uses of mankind. And the answer 
 is not far to seek. Meriwether Lewis was born among these 
 red hills. Lewis was a kinsman of Jefferson and Clark a brother 
 of the great frontier hero George Rogers Clark who was born 
 in this county. They gave their youth to self-sacrifice, glory, 
 and adventure. In the annals of America there are few things 
 pleasanter or more creditable than the story of Lewis and Clark. 
 They were pioneers and pathfinders in a gigantic Odyssey be- 
 side which the wandering Greeks were timid and provincial. 
 Like Ulysses they too "ever with a frolic welcome took the 
 thunder and the sunshine" and strong in will pushed on "to 
 strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 
 
 There is no fame just like the fame of the pioneer. Colum- 
 bus staring over the stormy seas from the bow of his frail ship, 
 Livingston lost in the African jungles. Read in his thundering 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 9 
 
 sea-plane, and Alcock and Brown leaping from continent to 
 continent between the rising and setting of the sun — ithese deeds 
 stimulate the imagination, and explain why art turns to these 
 young pioneers and places them here in eternal sculptural 
 beauty, and also why great cities planted where their camp fires 
 burned, hold them in reverence and commemorate their fame. 
 The votive stone we set up today however is far more signifi- 
 cant than the mere erection of a memorial to splendid heroic 
 kinsmen and neighbors. It is essentially a memorial to three 
 great attributes of the complex human spirit, and is clothed 
 with a weighty purpose and a lofty mission. 
 
 Love of country shines out of the eyes of these young voy- 
 ageurs and the children here today and those to come after 
 them will catch from their passion the mystic meaning of that 
 great conception which is embodied in the word patriotism so 
 hard to define, like a mother's love or the rose's beauty or the 
 sunset's glory, but so real that men think it sweet and fit to give 
 their lives that it may endure and prevail. 
 
 Sheer beauty here uplifts its moving appeal as the ultimate 
 and most virile of spiritual stimulations, and once again art of- 
 fers to please a "fierce democracy" as in ancient Athens the 
 temple of Minerva and the works of Phideas pleased the peo- 
 ple, and later in Italy, the Tower of Gietto and the canvas of 
 Raphael moved the crowd to infinite sympathy and kindled in 
 their souls divine conceptions of beautiful forms. And de- 
 mocracy needs just such tutelage. It is a narrow view which 
 beholds it as a mere thing of ruggedness and strength. Granted 
 that its primal needs are strength and virtue and simplicity and 
 freedom — Does it not also need beauty and dignity and gran- 
 deur, if you will? Else, otherwise, it perish of vulgar strength. 
 
 There is nothing too good for a democracy and nothing more 
 manly than beauty. When such a life as the life of Robert 
 Lee, for example, grows round and whole and entire, as our 
 last word we declare it to be a beautiful life. After the meagre 
 rocky earth has been prepared by elemental labor through cen- 
 turies for its fruitful task, then as a sort of finality the flower 
 blooms on the mountain side with a touch of imperishable 
 beauty resting for a moment on its bright petals. This raw 
 
10 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 country with its strange mixture of races is just beginning to 
 understand how beneficent an influence art can and should be 
 made in the lives of the people. These great masses are grop- 
 ing for outlets to their emotions which shall correspond to their 
 best aspirations and noble art is the medium for the expression 
 of this legitimate desire which no wise society will neglect, un- 
 less it is willing for restlessness and sensation and even lawless- 
 ness to supersede art as popular stimulants. 
 
 And finally, this statue, the work of Charles Keck, and the 
 gift of Paul Goodloe Mclntire, teaches and shall teach for all 
 time how great a love a man may bear though he wander far 
 away and bufifet all the storms of life, for the home spot where 
 he was born, the home friends who played with him in child- 
 hood, the home scenes of hill and valley and mountain range 
 that have never for him ceased to glitter with their brightness 
 and nourish with their strength. It shall speak, too, of how 
 steadfast a purpose may burn in the heart of a quiet gentle- 
 man to make things about him better and more beautiful than 
 they are, to help his fellows to a fuller life, "to heal the broken- 
 hearted and to set at liberty them that are bruised." 
 
 Gazing at these soaring figures with their eyes fixed on the 
 far future and reflecting upon the source of such splendid giv- 
 ing, those who grow to manhood and womanhood in this town 
 will come to know that great citizenship still lives in Albemarle, 
 expressing itself not only in adventure and physical daring but 
 in self denial, moral courage, and social vision. And thus youth, 
 upon which we build all our hopes, will again take it to heart 
 that men become great by the might of great love and great 
 sympathy and steadfast understanding of civic needs and com- 
 munity progress. 
 
 In the name and in behalf of Paul Goodloe Mclntire, an ar- 
 tist in giving, a lover of beauty in form, and a friend of the peo- 
 ple, 1 have the honor and privilege of presenting to the city of 
 Charlottesville this memorial to Meriwether Lewis and William 
 Clark. Let it typify throughout the ages, in its graceful strength 
 and massive beauty, the triple message of fruitfulness, unself- 
 ishness and devotion to duty which has always distinguished the 
 Commonwealth of Virginia and given to her the proud author- 
 ity that springs from the motherhood of the American Republic. 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 11 
 
 The Chairman : The monument, the gift of her father, will 
 now be unveiled by Miss Virginia Mclntire. 
 
 After the unveiling — the Chairman : 
 
 In behalf of the City of Charlottesville, and by the request 
 of the city authorities, this gift will now be accepted by one of 
 our most distinguished citizens, Judge R. T. W. Duke. 
 
 Judge Duke : 
 
 Address of Acceptance. 
 Dr. Alderman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 On behalf of my native City and carrying out the duty gra- 
 ciously imposed upon me by those in authority, I accept with 
 pride and pleasure this magnificent gift of a munificent giver. 
 
 Pride in the fact that this beautiful work of art comes to us 
 from one of our citizen, born and bred amongst us, who returns 
 to us bringing the fruits of his years of labor and consecrates 
 them alike to the memory of two of our great citizens, and to 
 the adornment of the home of his nativity ; pleasure in feeling 
 that this counterfeit presentment of these two heroes of ex- 
 ploration will stand in this spot facing the West that they con- 
 quered, and furnishing an adornment, an education and an in- 
 spiration to the coming generations. 
 
 For true Art whilst it adorns must educate and inspire. It 
 fails in all of these things if it fails in one. I do not agree with 
 the modern novelist who states that it has to do only with the 
 emotions — not with ideas. I rather agree with Goethe who has 
 said that, "A genuine work of art is like a work of nature, in- 
 finite to our minds^ — seen, felt, heard, producing its effect even 
 though it cannot really be known or its essence expressed in 
 words." And so whilst it adorns, exciting all the emotions that 
 beauty ever excites, it kindles the ideas and leads the mind to 
 search for what Matthew Arnold once called beauty, "Truth 
 seen from another side." And he who has once been inspired 
 to search for Truth has placed his foot upon the first round of 
 the ladder that leads to the eternal stars. 
 
12 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 In educating the eye, Art necessarily educates the soul, 
 teaching it to search for that beauty which exists in everything 
 and everywhere and which in the words of the greatest of mod- 
 ern sculptors, Rodin, is lacking nowhere — only our eyes lack 
 the power to perceive it. And as our children gaze upon this 
 superb creation of the great artist who has brought it into being 
 they will learn from each line a new lesson and desire to know 
 more of the divine creations of the genius of the children of 
 men. It will lead them through emotions to high ideals and 
 ideas, and ideas govern the world. It will lead them to study 
 the lives of these two great explorers; to study the geography 
 and history of the magnificent country their efforts gave to the 
 Union ; to catch an inspiration from the lessons of self-sacrifice 
 of dauntless courage and of unwearying hope these two men 
 and their brave companions gave to the world. Thus will this 
 monument be alike an adornment, an education, and an inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 And as such, Sir, I accept it at your hands, so charmingly pre- 
 sented in words which are worthy of the occasion. To you 
 who present it ; to the artist who conceived it, and above all to 
 the patriotic, generous gentleman who gave it, we tender a thank- 
 fulness for which words are inadequate. 
 
 We will guard it well. We will cherish it with pride ; and as 
 it stands here to bid the coming generations remember what 
 great men sprang from this old red soil, we will cherish the 
 hope that sons as great — if not greater — shall yet be born to 
 bid the world see that Virginia has been, is, and will ever be the 
 Virsfin Mother of transcendent men. 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 13 
 
 The school childrens' chorus then sang "America, the Beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 The Chairman : 
 
 It is fitting that there be recited here today something of the 
 story of these heroic men whose fame this statue is meant to 
 keep alive. We are fortunate in having as our historian a well 
 known son of Albemarle who at one time in his youth was 
 school-master to our benefactor, the Honorable Armistead 
 Churchill Gordon, of Staunton, Virginia : 
 
 Mr. Gordon: 
 The Lkwis and Clark Expedition : An Historical 
 Discourse. 
 
 In the century which has elapsed since Meriwether Lewis and 
 William Clark blazed the way for civilization through the un- 
 trodden wilderness of the Northwest and disclosed an empire 
 rich in resources to the gaze of the young Republic, History has 
 written upon her most amazing page the mighty story of Amer- 
 ica. From a comparatively limited area including the new 
 Commonwealths of an untried adventure in government, united 
 by a compact, for an unsolved experiment of liberty, our coun- 
 try has grown into the mightiest nation upon earth. The genius 
 of the American people, under the influences of institutions es- 
 tablished in justice and freedom, and fostered by the spirit of 
 devotion, of self-sacrifice, and of resistless energy, in "one 
 equal temper of heroic hearts," has builded upon this continent 
 a great Nation, which has illustrated to the wondering peoples 
 of the earth the beneficence of the arts of peace, and has over- 
 thrown the strongholds of tyranny and oppression in the East- 
 ern Hemisphere, where it "dazzled the land with deeds." 
 
 In the contemplation of all that our country has come to be, 
 and promises yet to become, it is wise and patriotic that we 
 mark its progress by memorials, such as the monument which 
 we dedicate today, that those of our own generation no less than 
 they who shall follow us, may drink inspiration from the sacri- 
 fices and self-abnegation of those men who were the founders 
 
14 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 and makers of the Republic, and renewing in such visible dem- 
 onstration an unalterable fidelity to the principles on which they 
 established their mighty edifice, declare the invincible deter- 
 mination that the tested and ordered governments which they 
 wrought shall be immutably strengthened and continued in our 
 affections and in our devotion. 
 
 Xo monument ever raised upon American soil is more nearly 
 representative and more fairly typical of our earlier history 
 than is this splendid memorial to the two dauntless pioneers 
 who, under the inspiration of our great Apostle of human free- 
 dom opened the shut gates of a continent and proclaimed the 
 physical and spiritual immensity of our onward march. Xo 
 memorial structure of our western world could be more appro- 
 priately situated ; for the home of Jefferson, the originator of 
 the Columbian Exploration is within easy sight ; the birth places 
 of ^leriwether Lewis and of William Clark's father are nearby 
 in the county of Albemarle, and Paul Goodloe Mclntire, the 
 patriotic and generous donor of the memorial, was born and 
 spent his boyhood in this city of Charlottesville. This monu- 
 ment illustrates in the bronze simulacra of the two explorers, 
 so splendidly wrought by the chisel of the sculptor. Keck, the 
 love of country characterizing all who have been thus connected 
 with it: the patriotism of what Burke calls "the little platoon 
 — '"the sub-division in society," to be attached to which is "the 
 germ of public aft'ections." It typifies the genius of construc- 
 tive statesmanship, the courage and devotion of daring adven- 
 ture, the achievement made possible to the American citizen, 
 and the noble development of American art. 
 
 The many sided genius of Jefferson had contemplated the ex- 
 ploration of what became later known as the Oregon country, 
 many years before the Louisiana Purchase, through which his 
 courage and prevision added an empire to the territorial posses- 
 sions of the United States. Xapoleon had compelled its retro- 
 cession by Spain to France, but had not finally taken possesion 
 of it in 1800, the year before Jefferson was elected President, 
 though even the ocean shores of the Oregon country were then 
 scarcely known; Drake, "the little pirate" of Queen Elizabeth, 
 who "singed the King of Spain's beard" on the Spanish main, 
 had seen the Columbian coast in 1580; Cook had sighted it in 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 15 
 
 1778, and Vancouver had made a more thorough exploration in 
 1793 ; while Meares under the Portuguese flag, had occupied a 
 small part of the coast as early as 1788. In 1793 a few enter- 
 prising fur traders, in private employment had already begun 
 pushing into this unexplored region, and established trading 
 posts ; in the same decade Spain and England clashed with one 
 another in Nootka Sound, and war was only averted by the 
 treaty of the Escurial in 1790. The Oregon littoral was in re- 
 ality No Man's Land, though included impliedly in the Louisi- 
 ana Purchase, until Lewis and Clark reached it with their ex- 
 pedition across the Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia 
 River. Whether or not Jefferson had already conceived his 
 dream of the acquisition of the Trans-Mississippi country, is 
 unknown, but in 1783, he had suggested to George Rogers 
 Clark, the older brother of William Clark, an investigation of 
 the region west of the Father of Waters. And subsequently, in 
 1788 he had negotiated with the celebrated traveller, Ledyard, 
 for an exploration of the northwestern Pacific coast, by way of 
 Kamchatka from Russia, — tan enterprize which was begun, and 
 ended almost in its inception by Ledyard's arrest on the order 
 of the Russian Empress. On the 11th of Alay, 1791, Robert 
 Gray, sailing under the direction of merchants in Boston, had 
 stumbled upon the mouth of a great river on the Oregon coast, 
 called by the fur-traders St. Roque, to which he gave the name 
 of Columbia, after his own ship ; but he made no entrance into 
 the river, that remained unexplored until the coming of the \'ir- 
 ginia pioneers. 
 
 In 1792 Jefferson proposed to the American Philosophical 
 Society of Philadelphia, to send out an exploring party into the 
 West with funds to be raised by subscription ; and it was under 
 the auspices of this Society that Michaux, the French traveler 
 and botanist, proceeded on his adventure westward, until he was 
 recalled by the French minister. It is probable, that while Jef- 
 ferson's thought had long been directed towards this magnifi- 
 cent and mysterious region, his attitude towards it had been at 
 first largely scientific ; for in his detailed instructions to Lewis, 
 of June 20, 1803, he dwelt with emphasis and particularity on 
 the journals and records which were to be kept, in which all 
 possible scientific data were to be written, and which he in- 
 
16 Unveiung Exercises 
 
 formed Lewis were to be prepared "with great pains ]and ac- 
 curacy, to be entered distinctly and intelligibly for others as 
 well as for yourself." His interest in natural history was al- 
 ways unbounded; and it has been said of him that "it is proba- 
 ble that no two men have done so much for science in America 
 as Jefferson and Agassiz — iiot so much by their direct contribu- 
 tions to knowledge as by the immense weight which they gave 
 to scientific interests by their advocacy." Now, when the ac- 
 quisition of this new territory from France was in prospect, his 
 previous academic interest in the unknown country was intensi- 
 fied by the practical view that it was highly desirable to be ac- 
 quainted with the physical features and material resources of 
 so vast a domain. The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory 
 was regarded by him as early as January 1803, as one of "pri- 
 mary interest" to the United States, and negotiations in regard 
 to it were already in progress. He sent a secret message to 
 Congress, suggesting an exploring party to reach the Indian 
 trade west of the Mississippi, recommending a modest appro- 
 priation of a few thousand dollars for the purpose. Congress 
 approved the project, and made the appropriation, and Jeffer- 
 son at once went to work with preparations for the expedition, 
 in which he continued to take a profound personal concern, un- 
 til its important results were finally demonstrated. In his let- 
 ter to Paul Allen, the editor and compiler with Nicholas Biddle 
 of the first publication of Lewis and Clark's journals, which 
 was written August 18, 1813, Jefferson gave a view of the life 
 and work of Lewis, with especial reference to the Columbia 
 River expedition, in which he states that even at the time of 
 the Michaux movement, Lewis had been eager to take part in 
 this exploration: "I proposed to the American Philosophical 
 Society that we should set on foot a subscription to engage some 
 competent person to explore that region in the opposite direc- 
 tion; that is by ascending the Missouri, crossing the Stony 
 Mountains and descending the nearest river to the Pacific. Cap- 
 tain Lewis, being then stationed in Charlottesville, on the re- 
 cruiting service, warmly solicited me to obtain for him the exe- 
 cution of that object. I told him it was proposed that the per- 
 son engaged should be attended by a single companion only, to 
 avoid exciting alarm among the Indians. This did not deter 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 17 
 
 him; but Mr. Andre Michaux, a professed botanist, author of 
 the flora Boreali Americana, and of the Histoire des Chesnes 
 d'Amerique, offering his services they were accepted. He re- 
 ceived his instructions ; and when he had reached Kentucky, in 
 the prosecution of his journey, he was overtaken by an order 
 from the Minister of France, then at Philadelphia, to relinquish 
 the expedition, and to pursue elsewhere the botanical inquiries 
 on which he was employed by that government; and thus failed 
 the second attempt for exploring the region." It was, there- 
 fore, natural, when the American Congress agreed to the Presi- 
 dent's recommendation to send an exploring party into the 
 northwestern country, that Jefferson's thought should finally 
 turn to Lewis, who was then his private secretary, as its leader. 
 While the Louisiana Territory had not yet been acquired by the 
 United States, he believed that France would not object to the 
 expedition and would regard the enterprise merely, as he curi- 
 ously termed it, "as a literary pursuit." He knew well the met- 
 tle of the young and adventurous soldier, whose leadership he 
 concluded to seek ; and approved him as in many respects an 
 ideal person for this adventure of hardship, daring and ro- 
 mance. "Captain Lewis" he wrote to Allen, in his summary of 
 the character and career of Lewis, "who had then been nearly 
 two years with me as private secretary, immediately renewed 
 his solicitations to have the direction of the party. I had now 
 had opportunities of knowing him intimately ; of courage un- 
 daunted ; possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose 
 which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direc- 
 tion ; careful as a father to those committed to his charge, yet 
 steady in the maintenance of order and discipline ; intimate with 
 the Indian character, customs and principles ; habituated to the 
 hunting life; guarded by exact observation of the animals of his 
 own country against losing time in the description of objects 
 already possessed ; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound un- 
 derstanding, and of a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that what- 
 ever he should report would be as certain as if seen by our- 
 selves — with all these qualifications, as if selected and planted 
 by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have 
 no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him." This is high 
 
18 Unveiung Exercises 
 
 praise from such a source; but the results accomplished by 
 Lewis amply justified Jefferson's estimate of him. 
 
 Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18th, 1774, at the 
 home of his father "Locust Hill," near what is now Ivy, on the 
 Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, a few miles west of Charlottes- 
 ville. He came of a family whose representatives had been 
 prominently identified with the history of colonial Virginia, and 
 who were connected with George Washington through the in- 
 termarriage of his sister, Eliz-abeth, with Fielding Lewis, the 
 explorer's great-uncle. Like Jefiferson, Lewis was of Welsh 
 extraction, and is said to have descended from Robert Lewis, 
 emigrant to America from Brecon, Wales, in 1635, though this 
 descent is controverted by eminent Virginia genealogists. His 
 grandfather was Robert Lewis, who was a son of John Lewis 
 and Frances Fielding, and brother of Fielding Lewis, Wash- 
 ington's brother-in-law. Robert Lewis settled at Belvoir in Al- 
 bemarle County, on the east side of the South West Mountains, 
 later the home of Hugh Nelson, and his name is said by Bishop 
 Meade, in his "Old Churches and Families" to have been in- 
 scribed on the vestry book of Frederickville Parish, Albemarle 
 County, as early as 1742. Robert Lewis married in 1725 Jane 
 Meriwether, daughter of Nicholas Meriwether and Elizabeth 
 Crawford; and of this union were born eleven children, all of 
 whom lived to be grown and married. Their fourth son was 
 William Lewis, who was an officer in the American Revolution. 
 He married Lucy Meriwether, daughter of Thomas Meriwether 
 and Elizabeth Thornton and resided at "Locust Hill," the birth- 
 place of his distinguished son, a part of which is still owned by 
 his descendants. Of the marriage of William Lewis and Lucy 
 Meriwether were born two sons and one daughter, Meriwether, 
 Reuben and Jane, the latter of whom married Edmund Ander- 
 son, and it is her descendants who are the present possessors 
 of a part of the "Locust Hill" estate, which has continued in 
 the family since its purchase by Robert Lewis in 1730. Wil- 
 liam Lewis died when his oldest son was a small boy, and his 
 widow married Colonel William Marks, also a Revolutionary' 
 patriot, and moved with her children to Georgia. Upon the 
 death of Colonel Marks she returned to Locust Hill, and shortly 
 afterwards, Meriwether Lewis, who had already served in the 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 19 
 
 Indian campaigns under General Wayne, and was then a young 
 man of about twenty, volunteered with the troops called out to 
 suppress the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and in 
 1795, entered the regular army, in which he became a captain. 
 
 In 1801, when Jefferson was inaugurated, the President se- 
 lected him as his private secretary. When Jeft'erson deter- 
 mined to send out this first exploring expedition ever under- 
 taken by the United States Government, the purpose of which 
 was to ascend the Missouri to its source, and then to cross the 
 continent through a theretofore untraversed country to the Pa- 
 cific Ocean, he had at first sought as a leader a trained scientist, 
 who should possess "courage prudence, habits and health 
 adapted to the woods, and some familiarity with the Indian 
 character," and he had corresponded with some of his scientific 
 friends on the subject. The search had been vain. No man 
 could be found who combined the education and experience of 
 the "trained scientist" with other and far more essential quali- 
 fications of an explorer; and fortunately, as the event demon- 
 strated, his choice fell on Lewis, who was eager for the under- 
 taking, and whom he knew to be "brave, prudent, habituated to 
 the woods and familiar with the Indian manners and character. 
 He is not regularly educated," Jeft'erson wrote further of him 
 at the time, "but he possesses a great mass of accurate infor- 
 mation on all the subjects of nature which present themselves 
 here, and will therefore readily select those only in his new 
 route which shall be new." 
 
 In order to acquire "a greater familiarity with the technical 
 language of the natural sciences and readiness in the astronomi- 
 cal observations necessary for the geography of his route," 
 Lewis went to Philadelphia, the seat of the American Philo- 
 sophical Society, and then the principal city of learning in the 
 country, and studied under eminent specialists the rudiments of 
 these sciences. It appears that in earlier life he had evinced a 
 taste for botany, and had already acquired some knowledge and 
 skill in this branch of knowledge. 
 
 Upon the conclusion of his temporary studies, he chose, with 
 Jefferson's approval, as a companion and associate who should 
 share the honors, the labors, and the perils of the great adven- 
 ture, William Clark, who was four years his senior and had 
 
 /« 
 
 ^ 
 
20 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 been his friend and comrade in the campaigns under General 
 Wayne. The wisdom of this choice was demonstrated in every 
 event of the expedition ; and the sympathy of the two leaders, 
 their regard for each other, and their unanimity of purpose are 
 emphasized by Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites in his story of the 
 journals of the expedition which he edited. "The pages of the 
 journals," writes Dr. Thwaites, "are aglow with human interest. 
 The quiet, even temper of the camp ; the loving consideration 
 that each of the two leaders felt for the other, the magnanimity 
 of Lewis, officially the leader, in equally dividing every honor 
 with his friend, and making no move without the latter's con- 
 sent; the poetic temperament of Lewis, who loved flowers and 
 animals, and in his notes discoursed like a philosopher who en- 
 joyed the exercise of writing; the rugged character of Clark, 
 who wrote in brief, pointed phrase, and, less educated of the 
 two, spelled phonetically, capitalized chaotically, and occasion- 
 ally slipped in his grammar — all these, and more, are evident on 
 every page, causing the reader to deeply admire the men and to 
 follow them in their often thrilling adventures with the keenest 
 sympathy and anticipation." 
 
 The Clarks, like the Lewises, were Albemarle people ; and 
 William's father, John Clark, whose wife was Ann Rogers, 
 lived near Monticello, where his famous older son, George Rog- 
 ers Clark, the explorer of the Illinois country, was born in 1752. 
 John Clark subsequently removed from Albemarle to Caroline 
 County, Virginia ; and here William Clark, whose name is 
 linked in American history with that of Meriwether Lewis, was 
 born August 1, 1770. In 1784 this branch of the Clark family 
 again moved, this time to Kentucky, and settled on a planta- 
 tion called "^Mulberry Hill," on Beargrass Creek, near what is 
 now the city of Louisville, where George Rogers Clark had 
 built a fort. In this home an abundant hospitality prevailed, 
 and among its guests were "the sturdy pioneers of the Kentucky 
 movement, with their tales of Indian warfare and other perils 
 and hardships of the earlier settlements ;" but "the second gen- 
 eration of Kentucky emigrants," writes Dr. Thwaites, "also 
 found here a welcome — gentlemen and lawyers of the new set- 
 tlements. Revolutionary soldiers, seeking homes in the growing 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 21 
 
 West, men of culture and promise, permanent founders of a 
 new civilization. Among them young 'Billy' was a marked fav- 
 orite." In this environment, in "the dark and bloody ground," 
 where Indian raids were still not infrequent, and from which 
 expeditions against the Indians were continuous, young Clark 
 early imbibed a knowledge of the Indian characteristics and 
 methods of warfare, and with it the inevitable spirit of adven- 
 ture. The expeditions against the Indians excited his interest 
 and enthusiasm, and when little more than a boy he began to 
 take part in them. He was a private in Colonel Hardin's ex- 
 pedition against the Indians north of the Ohio; and was sent in 
 the following year on a mission to the Creeks and Cherokees. 
 In 1791 he was appointed ensign, and was acting second lieu- 
 tenant under General Scott on the Wabash Indian expedition. 
 His daring and intrepidity were conspicuous; and in May 1791, 
 Dr. James O'Fallon wrote to William's brother. Colonel Jona- 
 than Clark of Caroline County : "Your brother William is gone 
 out on the expedition with General Scott. He is a youth of 
 solid and promising parts, and as brave as C^sar." Two or 
 three years later he was promoted to the position of first lieu- 
 • tenant and was assigned to the Fourth Sub-Legion of General 
 Anthony Wayne's western army. In the western country he 
 was engaged in frequent encounters with the Indians, and was 
 twice entrusted by General Wayne with important commissions 
 to the Spaniards, upon whom he made an impression which cre- 
 ated for him a "wholesome respect." During this time he be- 
 came experienced in the control and management of considera- 
 ble bodies of men, and this experience qualified him as the prin- 
 cipal military director of the expedition to the Pacific. Prior to 
 the time of the expedition Clark had returned from the army 
 to his home in Kentucky where he devoted his time to his fam- 
 ily and farm, and to settling the involved affairs of his brother, 
 General George Rogers Clark, to which he sacrificed the larger 
 portion of his own modest possessions. He accepted his friend, 
 Meriwether Lewis's invitation to unite with him in the leader- 
 ship of the exploring expedition in August, 1803, and joined 
 him at St. Louis, where the adventurers gathered for their start. 
 At the time of the expedition the boundaries and extent of 
 
22 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 the territory west of the Mississippi were of vague and uncer- 
 tain repute. The region had been neither explored nor mapped, 
 and the dividing Hues between it and British America on the 
 north and Mexico on the south were undefined ; while the north- 
 western portion was in the possession of Indian tribes, with a 
 few British fur-traders among them. The country where the 
 Missouri River had its sources had never been entered by the 
 white man; and even the extent of the Rocky Mountains, be- 
 yond those sources was not known, so far as the territory ac- 
 quired by the United States was concerned, though in British 
 America they had been mapped under the name of the "Stonies."' 
 
 Preparations for the expedition had been conducted with 
 great secrecy, owing to the indefiniteness of Spain's possession 
 and France's ownership in the vast area designated as the 
 Louisiana Purchase; but in July, 1803, it became known at 
 Washington that the treaty of May 2 of that year, ceding the 
 Louisiana Territory to the United States by France, had been 
 signed, and the need of secrecy ceasing, the preparations al- 
 ready begun were continued with great activity. 
 
 The expedition was organized as a military one, under the 
 orders of the Secretary of War, and in charge of men who had 
 been trained in the military profession. That its results could 
 never have been accomplished by civilians, under the circum- 
 stances which surrounded it, is demonstrated by the voluminous 
 records made of it ; and though the first, it was one of the most 
 conspicuous of the many notable achievements by Americans of 
 military training in fields other than those of actual war. 
 
 The party officially enrolled were twenty nine in number, con- 
 sisting of twenty soldiers and nine frontiersmen, together with 
 a number of French and half-breed voyageurs and interpreters, 
 Clark's negro servant, York, and the Indian squaw, Sacajawea, 
 a member of the Rocky Mountain Snake Tribe, making forty 
 five in all, including the two leaders. Lewis embarked with 
 some of these at Pittsburg August 31, 1803, and was joined by 
 Clark and the others at Louisville. They went into camp at the 
 Dubois or Wood River, in Illinois, opposite the mouth of the 
 Missouri, in December, where they were drilled and instructed 
 as soldiers and frontiersmen, and where they accumulated their 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 2Z 
 
 stores for the journey. All of the men of the party were for- 
 mally enlisted in the army before starting, so that they might 
 be kept under regular and proper discipline. During the period 
 of their encampment at the Dubois River, Lewis went frequently 
 to St. Louis, where he held conferences with French fur-traders 
 and others who were familiar with portions of the country he 
 proposed to traverse. 
 
 The party broke camp and started up the Missouri on May 
 4, 1804. They travelled in three boats the largest of which was 
 rigged with sails and supplied with oars and with tow lines fas- 
 tened to the mast poles to "track" the boats upstream through 
 rapids. They were well equipped with firearms and ammuni- 
 tion, and with abundant provision of food and clothing and 
 numerous goods, gifts and trinkets for the Indians. For a pe- 
 riod that was lacking in unusual adventure, they made their 
 way up the river through what is now the State of Missouri, 
 living bountifully upon the deer and wild turkeys that they 
 found in profusion. Horses were led along shore for hunting, 
 and for excursions into the adjacent country, and the large boat 
 carried a swivel-gun for extraordinary defense. Along the 
 banks of the turbid Missouri, then at flood-tide, the adventurers 
 met the lonely trappers who were coming down the Platte and 
 the Osage Rivers at this season in their canoes loaded with furs 
 for St. Louis ; and their fires upon the river banks attracted the 
 attention of the neighboring Indians, of whose attacks the fur- 
 traders bade them beware. Some of the Indians proved friendly, 
 and met them in council ; and Council Blufifs commemorates one 
 of these meetings which was participated in by lowas, Omahas, 
 Ricarees and Sioux. They passed on their way to visit the high 
 Indian mound on the southside of the Missouri, where they 
 were told that Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas, was 
 buried astride his war-horse, so that his spirit might always 
 watch the French voyageurs and fur-trappers passing in their 
 canoes up and down the river. 
 
 The journey of the adventurers up the Missouri lasted through 
 the summer and early autumn of 1804; and by October they 
 were sixteen hundred n-iiles north of St. Louis, at the \'iliages 
 of the Mandans, near where the city of Bismark, North Dakota, 
 
24 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 now stands. They were received in a friendly manner by these 
 Indians, though other neighboring tribes indicated hostihty. 
 Here Lewis constructed a stockaded fort enclosing huts, over 
 v/hich they hoisted the United States flag, and called it Fort 
 ]\Iandan. Their experience in spite of their secure shelter, was 
 one of suffering on account of the extreme cold ; and though 
 they were now in the country of the elk and the buffalo, it was 
 hard to hunt in the winter weather, and the animals were poor. 
 However, all winter the men engaged in the buffalo-chase, and 
 laid up a supply of pemmican. By the end of March the river 
 was clear of ice, and early in April, in their boats, to which 
 they had added several new ones during the encampment, they 
 pushed out on the ^Missouri, amid the cheers of the Canadian 
 trappers and Indians on the shore. 
 
 Up to this time the adventurers had traversed a country, 
 which though little known, was yet travelled ground. Now they 
 were passing into a region that encompassed all the possibili- 
 ties of the unknown and mysterious. Their voyage had ceased 
 to be the easy way which they had found it from St. Louis. The 
 river was swifter and more dangerous, the banks were steeper 
 and more rugged, and they were compelled to have more fre- 
 quent recourse to their tow^-lines in order to make their slow and 
 painful progress. The hunting parties which they sent out for 
 game met with the theretofore unknown grizzly bears, which 
 frequently attacked them. Their moccasins wore out. and their 
 feet were lacerated by prickly-pear and stones along the precip- 
 itous banks of the river. 
 
 On May 26, 1805, they gained their first sight of the distant 
 "Shining Mountains" as the Indians called the Rockies, and 
 viewed with emotion the glittering and snow-clad ranges, which 
 in that part of the continent had never been crossed by the foot 
 of the white man. About the middle of August, having dis- 
 covered in June and passed, by portaging their boats, the Great 
 Falls of the Missouri, extending with their various declivities 
 and rapids a distance of eighteen miles, they reached the head- 
 waters of the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri, after traversing 
 a country swarming with every variety of game and wild ani- 
 mals, which was thronged with ferocious grizzlies and wolves, 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 25 
 
 infested by rattlesnakes and abounding in the river bottoms in 
 mosquitoes. From the springs of the Jefferson Fork they passed 
 with toilsome labor the "divide" of the Bitter-root Mountains, 
 and descended in their boats, which they had portaged through 
 the "divides" and passes of the Rockies, the Clearwater leading 
 to the Columbia. On November 8, 1805, the boats had traversed 
 the last portage of the Columbia, and when the morning fog 
 lifted, the adventurers, 
 
 "Like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
 He stared at the Pacific and all his men 
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise. 
 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien," 
 
 beheld the illimitable and shining expanse of the great ocean. 
 They had arrived in sight of the object of their dangerous and 
 romantic quest. They had been the earliest white men from the 
 mouth of the ^lissouri to its sources ; they had been the first to 
 cross the great ranges of the Middle Rockies, and they were the 
 first to go down the Columbia River to the Pacific. 
 
 They built on the south side of the river near its mouth a 
 stockaded fort of log huts, which they named Fort Clatsop, 
 after the neighboring Indian tribe ; and here they went into 
 winter-quarters. They had achieved the ultimate object of their 
 adventure ; but its perils and discomforts now reached their 
 climax. They were surrounded by Indians, many of whom 
 were hostile, and the dampness of the coast affected the health 
 of the unaccustomed inlanders. No ships or trading mariners 
 came to the Columbia during the winter, and their store of pro- 
 visions ran low. But with indomitable energy and unfailing 
 courage they spent their time in studying the habits and char- 
 acteristics of the natives, in making scientific investigations, in 
 writing up their journals and note books, and in carving trinkets 
 and toys with which to obtain supplies from the savages ; and 
 they celebrated Christmas and the New Year of 1806 with the 
 discharge of fire-arms and such mild festivities as they were 
 able to devise. 
 
 With the coming of the spring they made ready for the 
 homeward journey, which gave promise of even greater dan- 
 
26 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 gers and troubles than those which they had already encoun- 
 tered ; for their supplies were exhausted, and the Indian tribes, 
 through whose country they had passed, were likely to prove 
 more aggressive as they went back. They set out for Fort 
 Clatsop upon their return on March 23, 1806. They were in 
 dire straits. "The goods left to trade for food and horses when 
 Lewis and Clark departed from the coast island," writes a his- 
 torian of the expedition, "had dwindled to what could have been 
 tied in two handkerchiefs ; but necessity proved the mother of 
 invention, and the men cut the brass buttons from their tat- 
 tered clothes and vended brass trinkets to the Indians. The 
 medicine-chest was also sacrificed, every Indian tribe besieging 
 the two captains for eye-water, fly-blisters, and other patent 
 wares. The poverty of the white man roused the insolence of 
 the natives on the return over the mountains. Rocks were rolled 
 down on the boatmen at the worst portages by aggressive In- 
 dians ; and once, when the hungry voyageurs were at a meal of 
 dog-meat, an Indian impudently flung a live pup straight at Cap- 
 tain Lewis's plate. In a trice the pup was back in the fellow's 
 face; Lewis had seized a weapon, and the crestfallen aggressor 
 had taken ignominiously to his heels." 
 
 Their slow and anxious journey homeward was one of con- 
 tinuous privation and peril. They were attacked by warriors 
 of the Minetaree tribe, one of whom Lewis slew in personal 
 combat. When they had crossed the mountains at Traveller's 
 Rest Creek, "where the native trails converged," they divided 
 into two parties, one under Lewis, going direct to the falls of 
 the Missouri, and afterwards exploring a tributary river, in or- 
 der to ascertain its availability as a fur-trade route towards the 
 north; and the other under the leadership of Clark, seeking the 
 head of navigation of the previous year, and thence crossing 
 over to the Yellowstone, which they descended to its junction 
 with the Missouri. After a separation of more than a month, 
 the two parties were reunited, on August 12, below the mouth of 
 the Yellowstone. Fur-traders from St. Louis up the Missouri 
 brought them the first news that they had had from the outside 
 world, and informed them that they had been given up for lost. 
 At the Mandan stockade, one of the party. Colter, obsessed with 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 27 
 
 the life they had been leading asked leave to return to the wil- 
 derness ; and here the dauntless Indian woman, Sacajawea, who 
 had been their guide across the Rockies, also departed with her 
 French-Canadian husband, Chaboneau, who had joined the 
 party on its westward journey at Fort Mandan. The worn and 
 ragged explorers after an absence of more than two years, 
 reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806. 
 
 The greatest pathfinders in the history of the United States 
 had accomplished a feat of daring and intrepid adventure, and 
 had returned from the discovery of what was a new world as 
 large as the half of Europe. But as stirring as is the story of 
 the great adventure itself, that of the records which were made 
 of it, under Jefferson's explicit instructions, is hardly less ro- 
 mantic. He had spoken of it in advance as "a literary pur- 
 suit," and such it proved to be in one of its most interesting 
 aspects. He had directed Lewis to keep journals of the pro- 
 posed expedition, recording all possible scientific data, which 
 were to be prepared "with great pains and accuracy." The 
 notes and memoranda were to be preserved against possible loss 
 by making copies of them — '"one of these copies (to) be writ- 
 ten on the paper of the birch, as less liable to injury from damp 
 than common paper." The instructions were obeyed with the 
 fidelity and persistence which characterized the deeds and dis- 
 coveries that the memoranda recorded. Both Lewis and Clark 
 kept journals, as did the four sergeants of the company, Charles 
 Floyd, Patrick Cass, John Ordway and Nathaniel Pryor. The 
 captains had issued orders early in the expedition that the ser- 
 geants, in addition to their other duties, should keep "separate 
 journals from day to day of all passing occurrences, and such 
 observations on the country, etc., as shall appear to them worthy 
 of notice." Several of the privates vied with the olificers in the 
 same work ; and tradition says that at least three of the twenty- 
 three privates recorded their experiences in diaries, though only 
 one private's note book is now known. The captains carried 
 field-books in their pockets ; and it was their daily custom to jot 
 down their notes and to sketch the rough outlines of maps and 
 plans, which they later developed when in camp into more ex- 
 act records. Dr. Thwaites, who finally collected, edited and 
 
28 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 published in 1904. all this mass of material, says of the journals 
 of the two leaders : "The manuscripts well exemplify the hab- 
 its and characteristics of the two men — Clark the more expe- 
 rienced frontiersman of the two, expressing himself with Doric 
 simplicity and vigor of phrase, and often amusingly eccentric 
 orthography ; Lewis, in more correct diction, inclined to expati- 
 ate on details, especially with regard to Indians and natural his- 
 tory, and frequently revealing a poetic temperament and a con- 
 siderable fund of humor." 
 
 The importance and significance of these records appear to 
 have been fully understood and appreciated by the leaders of 
 the expedition, not only during its progress, but upon their re- 
 turn to civilization. Three days after their arrival at St. Louis, 
 they began to put into definitive shape their literary work ; and 
 the final entry in Clark's journal is: "Friday 25th. (26) Septr. 
 1806. A fine morning. We commenced wrighting, etc." Clark 
 was the draughtsman of the party and made maps, and sketches 
 of birds, fishes, leaves, etc., in the note books of both Lewis and 
 himself, and on separate sheets of paper. Dr. Thwaites says : 
 "Collectively these journals of the captains cover each and every 
 day the expedition was out — largely a double record, although 
 there are occasional periods when we have the journal of but 
 one of them." 
 
 Jeflferson, in February, 1806, while the party were at the 
 mouth of the Columbia River, sent a message to Congress stat- 
 ing that "in pursuance of a measure proposed to Congress by a 
 message of January 18, 1803, and sanctioned by their approba- 
 tion for carrying it into execution. Captain Meriwether Lewis, 
 of the First Regiment of Infantry, was appointed with a party 
 of men to explore the river Missouri from its mouth to its 
 source, and crossing the highlands by the shortest portage, to 
 seek the best water communication thence to the Pacific Ocean; 
 and Lieutenant Clark was appointed second in command. They 
 were to enter into conference with the Indian Nations on their 
 route with a view to the establishment of commerce with them. 
 They entered the Missouri May 14, 1804, and on the 1st of No- 
 vember took up their winter cjuarters near the ]\Iandan towns, 
 1609 miles from the mouth of the river, in latitude 47° 21' 47" 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 29 
 
 north and longitude 99° 24' 45" west from Greenwich. On the 
 8th of April 1805, they proceeded up the river in pursuance of 
 the objects prescribed to them. A letter of the preceding day, 
 April 7th, from Captain Lewis is herewith communicated. Dur- 
 ing his stay among the Mandans, he had been able to lay down 
 the Missouri according to courses and distances taken on his 
 passage up it, corrected by frequent observations of longitude 
 and latitude, and to add to the actual survey of this portion of 
 the river a general map of the country between the Mississippi 
 and Pacific from the thirty-fourth to the fifty-fourth degree of 
 latitude. These additions are from information collected from 
 Indians, with whom he had opportunities of communicating dur- 
 ing his journey and residence with them. Copies of this map, 
 are now presented to both Houses of Congress. With these I 
 communicate also a statistical view, procured and forwarded by 
 him, of the Indian nations inhabiting the Territory of Louisi- 
 ana, and the countries adjacent to its northern and western 
 borders, of their commerce and other interesting circumstances 
 respecting them. In order to render the statement as complete 
 as may be of the Indians inhabiting the country west of the 
 Mississippi, I add Dr. Sibley's account of those residing in and 
 adjacent to the Territory of Orleans." 
 
 This message and the accompanying papers were promptly 
 published as a public document. But as great as was Jeffer- 
 son's eagerness for the disclosure to the world in all its details 
 of the story of the great expedition, for a time nothing au- 
 thentic was made public. Based on the government document 
 mentioned, a number of compilations undertaking to describe 
 the first year of the journey appeared in print, many of them 
 very inaccurate. The first of the journals, containing a detailed 
 report of the entire expedition, to be printed was that of Ser- 
 geant Patrick Gass, whose notes written up by an Irish school- 
 master, David McKeehan of Wellsburg, Virginia, appeared in 
 1807, and was reprinted in several editions, and in a French 
 translation in Paris in 1810. Jefferson had unfortunately left 
 with Lewis and Clark the right to make use of their literary ma- 
 terial in such publication as they saw fit ; but both men, on their 
 return, had not only been commissioned generals, but had re- 
 
30 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 ceived important and responsible government appointments, — 
 Lewis, that of Governor of the Louisiana Territory, and Clark 
 that of its Indian Agent. The duties incident to these offices 
 in so vast a region were necessarily absorbing, and neither of 
 them being of a literary turn, the publication of the journals 
 was deferred. Urged by Jefferson, it was determined in 1807 
 that Lewis should undertake the task of collecting and editing 
 them ; and arrangements were made for their publication in 
 Philadelphia. Lewis started on his way north, .and while trav- 
 eling through Tennessee, stopped at the house of a settler some 
 sixty miles southwest of Nashville, where he was murdered for 
 the sake of the small sum of money on his person. The report 
 was circulated, and was believed and accepted, without investi- 
 gation, by Jefferson, that he had committed suicide ; but the fact 
 of his murder seems now well established. Clark immediately 
 took up the matter of the publication of the journals, and se- 
 cured the assistance of Nicholas Biddle, a distinguished and 
 cultivated young lawyer and literary man of Philadelphia. Bid- 
 die completed his work in July 1811, but difficulties apparently 
 insuperable arose with the publisher; and not until 1814 did 
 the book appear, in an edition of two thousand copies, of which 
 nearly six hundred were in some way lost or destroyed. This 
 two-volume narrative, which is an abbreviated paraphrase, that 
 has been commonly believed to be the actual journals of Lewis 
 and Clark, has been in the intervening years reprinted in Amer- 
 ica and England in many editions, and translated into German 
 and Dutch. The Philadelphia publisher got into financial trou- 
 ble ; and Clark himself wrote Jefferson more than two and a 
 half years after the book's appearance that he himself had "not 
 been so fortunate as to procure a nngle volume as yet." The 
 slowness of the movement in the direction of printing the jour- 
 nals of an enterprise which Jefferson had set on foot, and in 
 both the making and the publication of which he had been 
 greatly concerned, gave the great statesman and philosopher 
 grave solicitude: and in 1813 we find him writing to Baron von 
 Humboldt: "You will find it inconceivable that Lewis's journey 
 to the Pacific should not yet have appeared; nor is it in my 
 power to tell you the reason. The measures taken by his sur- 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 31 
 
 viving comrade, Clark, for the publication, have not answered 
 our wishes in point of dispatch. I think, however, from what 
 I have heard that the mere journal will be out within a few 
 weeks in two volumes, 8vo. These I will take care to send you 
 with the tobacco seed you desired, if it be possible for them to 
 escape the thousand ships of our enemies spread over the ocean. 
 The botanical and zoological discoveries of Lewis will probably 
 experience greater delay, and become known to the world 
 through other channels before that volume will be ready. The 
 Atlas, I believe, waits on the leisure of the engraver." "Nearly 
 a hundred years have elapsed," comments Dr. Thwaites in 1906 
 on the last sentence of Jefferson's letter to Humboldt, "and we 
 still await its publication." In 1816 Jefferson began a search 
 for the manuscript journals, which seem to have disappeared, 
 with the purpose of placing them in the custody of the Amer- 
 ican Philosophical Society. He wrote to Professor Joseph F. 
 Correa da Serra, seeking to interest him in the search, and de- 
 scribing in some detail the documents, which he had examined 
 at Monticello. These papers, he informed Da Serra, "are the 
 property of the government, and fruits of the expedition un- 
 dertaken at much expense of money and risk of valuable lives. 
 They contain exactly the whole of the information which it was 
 our object to obtain for the benefit of our own country and of 
 the world, but we were willing to give to Lewis and Clark what- 
 ever pecuniary benefits might be derived from publication and 
 therefore left the papers in their hands, taking for granted that 
 their interests would produce a speedy publication, which would 
 be better if done under their direction. But the death of Capt. 
 Lewis, the distance and occupations of General Clark, and the 
 bankruptcy of their bookseller, have retarded the publication, 
 and rendered necessary that the government should attend to 
 the reclamation and security of the papers. Their recovery is 
 now become an imperious duty. Their safest deposit as fast as 
 they can be collected, will be the Philosophical Society, who no 
 doubt will be so kind as to receive and preserve them, subject 
 to the order of government. * * * As to any claims of in- 
 dividuals to these papers, it is to observed that, as being the 
 property of the public we are certain neither Lewis nor Clark 
 
32 Unveiung Exercises 
 
 would undertake to convey away the right to them, and that 
 they could not convey them, had they been capable of intending 
 it. * * * My interference will, I trust, be excused not only 
 from the portion which every citizen has in whatever is public, 
 but from the peculiar part I have had in the design and execu- 
 tion of this expedition." 
 
 Jefferson obtained an order from Clark to Biddle, who was 
 found to have a majority of the note books, which he proved 
 disinclined to surrender except on such instructions. Clark, 
 however, retained in possession at St. Louis, where he was then 
 living, five of his own original journals, most of the maps of 
 the expedition, and many miscellaneous documents concern- 
 ing it. These numerous manuscripts remained unpublished 
 for nearly seventy-five years in the vaults of the Philosophi- 
 cal Society, practically unknown to historical investigators 
 and scholars. In 1892 Dr. Elliott Coues, an eminent scientist 
 and traveler, while engaged in getting out a new edition of Bid- 
 die's work, learned of their existence, and used them in his 
 notes and emendations ; but it was not until Dr. Thwaites un- 
 dertook the publication in 1904 of his monumental work of the 
 "Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804- 
 1806," in which were included a large and rich collection of 
 other note books, papers, letter and fragments found in the pos- 
 session of Clark's descendants in New York, that the world 
 came into possession of the full and varied account of the great 
 transcontinental exploration. The original journals, far more 
 extensive than the Biddle narrative, abound in voluminous scien- 
 tific data — in botany, zoology, meteorology, geology, astronomy 
 and ethnology, and in addition to this immense record of the la- 
 bors of the expedition which the explorers brought back with 
 them, Lewis sent the President "sixty seven specimens of earth, 
 salt and mineral, and sixty specimens of plants." Jefferson's 
 "literary pursuit," after more than a hundred years, illustrates 
 with a continuity, a vividness and an overwhelming interest tlie 
 genius and industry of the explorers, no less than their romantic 
 daring and persistent faith. 
 
 In spite of its dangers and difficulties and its long duration, 
 no lives were lost on the expedition, save one. Lewis lived to 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 33 
 
 return to a position full of honors, with the promise of a career 
 of further usefulness, that was broken by his early death. Clark 
 survived the return of the exploring party more than thirty 
 years, occupying the office, by appointment of Congress, of 
 brigadier-general of the territory of Upper Louisiana, declining 
 in the War of 1812 an appointment as brigadier-general in the 
 army, and also the command then held by General Hull. Presi- 
 dent Madison made him Governor of the Missouri Territory 
 until its organization as a state in 1821, and he died at St. Louis 
 September 1, 1838. while holding by appointment of President 
 Monroe the position of Superintendent of Indian Afifairs at that 
 city. 
 
 Sergeant Charles Floyd, a young soldier aged about twenty 
 years, was the only one of the expeditionary party who met 
 death during the journey. He died near the site of what is now 
 Sioux City, Iowa, on May 14, 1805, leaving a journal covering 
 the period of his service : and the place of his burial on a 
 neighboring bluff is marked by a stately monument. His name 
 is worthy of remembrance by a grateful country, both because 
 he gave his life in its service in a momentous enterprise, and be- 
 cause the patronymic that he bore is, like those of Lewis and 
 Clark, indissolubly linked with the subsequent story of the 
 Oregon country. John Floyd, a first cousin of Sergeant Charles 
 Floyd, who was for many years a member of Congress from 
 Virginia, and later a distinguished Governor of the Common- 
 wealth, had enjoyed the friendship of William Clark "from his 
 earliest youth." He had named a son for George Rogers Clark, 
 and his early enthusiasm had been awakened by the thrilling 
 interest of the journey to the Pacific. In December, 1820, when 
 a member of Congress, he brought for the first time to the at- 
 tention of that body the question of American rights in the Co- 
 lumbia country, to which Great Britian still laid claim under a 
 vague title. By resolution Floyd obtained the appointment of a 
 committee, of which he was chairman, "to inquire into the situ- 
 ation of the settlements upon the Pacific Ocean and the expedi- 
 ency of occupying the Columbia River." His report, founding 
 the claim of the L^nited States to the disputed territory almost 
 entirely upon our rights under the Louisiana Purchase, is a no- 
 
34 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 table political document in American history, not only be- 
 cause it laid the practical foundation for the planting of a 
 great territory, but also because it expressed an intimation of 
 the Monroe Doctrine in the assertion as against the alleged 
 rights of Great Britain, which were based largely upon occupa- 
 tion by the fur-traders, that "there is no longer territory to be 
 obtained by settlement and discovery" on the American conti- 
 nent. Floyd's bill provided that when the population of the 
 American settlements amounted to 2000 souls, "all that por- 
 tion of the United States north of the 42nd parallel of latitude 
 and west of the Rocky Mountains is to be constituted a terri- 
 tory of the United States, under the name of the Territory of 
 Oregon." His resolutions thus contained not only the plan of 
 settling a region destined to include great states and vast pop- 
 ulations, but offered the first formal proposition to give to the 
 new territory the historic designation which it has since borne. 
 In the course of the debate on his proposal to occupy the Oregon 
 country, which was long protracted, he gave utterance to the vi- 
 sion which Jefferson's brain had encompassed, and which Lewis 
 and Clark had made possible : 
 
 "As we reach the Rocky Mountains," he said, "we should be 
 unwise did we not pass that narrow space which separates the 
 mountains from the Ocean, to secure advantages far greater 
 than the existing advantages of all the country between the 
 Mississippi and the mountains. Gentlemen are talking of nat- 
 ural boundaries. Our natural boundary is the Pacific Ocean. 
 The swelling tide of our population must and will roll on until 
 that mighty Ocean interposes its waters and limits our terri- 
 torial empire. Then with two Oceans washing our shores, the 
 commercial wealth of the world is ours, and imagination can 
 hardly conceive the greatness, the grandeur and the power that 
 await us." 
 
 Of all Jefferson's mighty achievements in the development of 
 civilization and the emancipation of the human mind, none has 
 exceeded in its momentous consequences the accomplishment of 
 the Louisiana Purchase ; and of all the romance which its his- 
 tory illustrates through more than a century, there is nothing 
 that surpasses the bold and perilous adventure of the two Vir- 
 
Lewis-Clark Statue 35 
 
 ginians, who first blazoned the way into the Oregon country and 
 to the Pacific. Where they went through the untravelled and 
 trackless territory, ascending and descending great rivers, cross- 
 ing mighty and unsurmounted mountains, and encountering 
 fierce hardships and harsh perils, the genius and enterprise of 
 inflowing millions of men have created powerful states and 
 builded populous cities. Agriculture and manufactures and min- 
 ing have marched there hand in hand to continued and inex- 
 haustible conquest ; and the commerce of the Orient, which 
 throughout history has excited the imagination of mankind, has 
 revealed herself to the charmed vision of the Oregon country, 
 and yielded of her riches to its welcome approach. The or- 
 dered system of our constitutions and laws shelters its wealth 
 and dominion with the protecting aegis of liberty; and over its 
 story shine like stars the immortal names of Meriwether Lewis 
 and William Clark, whose indomitable courage and endurance, 
 defying life and death, carved an empire out of a wilderness, 
 and gave to succeeding generations of Americans the inherit- 
 ance which they conquered. 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 Genealogies of the Lewis and Kindred Families, by John 
 Meriwether McAllister and Lura Boulton Tandy, Columbia, Mo. 
 1906; The Winning of the West, by Theodore Roosevelt, New 
 York, 1896; Pathfinders of the West, by A. C. Laut, New York, 
 1904; Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New 
 York, 1888; William and Mary College Quarterly, vol. IX, 1901 ; 
 Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, by Bishop 
 Meade, Philadelphia, 1889; Albemarle County in Virginia, by 
 Edgar Woods, Charlottesville, Va. 1901 ; Annual Report of the 
 American Historical Association for the Year 1903, vol. I, 
 Washington, D. C. 1904; Messages and Papers of the Pre.-i- 
 dents, vol. I, Washington, D. C. 1896; Life and Diary of John 
 Floyd, by Charles H. Ambler, Richmond, Va. 1918; Cyclopedia 
 of Political Science, edited by John J. Lalor, New York, 1893; 
 Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry S. Randall, New York, 
 1858; The True Thomas Jeft"erson, by William Eleroy Curtis, 
 
36 Unveiling Exercises 
 
 Philadelphia, 1904; Cyclopedia of A'irginia Biography, edited 
 by Lyon G. Tyler, New York, 1915; The South in the Build- 
 ing of the Nation. Richmond, Va., 1909-1913; History of the 
 Expedition Under the Command of Captain Lewis and Clark, 
 prepared for the press by Paul Allen, esquire, New York, 1814; 
 History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and 
 Clark, Elliott Coues, New York, 1893 ; Original Journals of the 
 Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, 
 New York, 1904-05. 
 
 The exercises of the day were concluded with the Benedic- 
 tion by Dr. Petrie. 
 
The Michie Company, Printers 
 
 Charlottesville, Va. 
 
 1919 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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