OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Volume 4, Number 3, Fall 2004

1 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Volume 4, Number 3, Fall 2004

A Journal of the History and Culture of the Ohio Valley and the Upper South, published in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, by Cincinnati Museum Center and The Filson Historical Society, Inc. Contents

The Art of Survival: Moravian Indians and Economic Adaptation in the Old Northwest, 1767-1808 Maia Conrad 3

“Fairly launched on my voyage of discovery”: Meriwether Lewis’s Expedition Letters to James Findlay Edited by James J. Holmberg 19

Space and Place on the Early American Frontier: The Ohio Valley as a Region, 1790-1850 Kim M. Gruenwald 31

Henry Bellows Interviews Hiram Powers Edited by Kelly F. Wright 49

Cincinnati in 1800. Lithograph by Reviews 79 Strobridge Lithograph Co. from painting by Announcements 92 A.]. Swing. Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati Historical Society Library

FALL 2004 3 Contributors

MAIACONRAD is an independent scholar. She received her Ph.D. in History from The College of William and Mary.

JAMESJ. HOLMBERGis Curator of Special Collections at The Filson Historical Society. He is the author of Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

KIM M. GRUENWALDis Associate Professor of History at Kent State University. She is the author of River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002).

KELLYF. WRIGHTis a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Cincinnati.

2 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY “Fairly launched on my voyage of discovery ” 0. Meriwether Lewis3 Expedition Letters to James Findlay

EDITEDBY JAMES J. HOLMBERC

he Lewis and Clark Expedition is an American epic. The bicentennial of the 1803-1806 journey of the “Corps of Discovery’’ has spurred Tinterest in the expedition in recent years, which in turn, as a welcome consequence, has triggered increased research and writing on the Corps and its transcontinental adventure. Recent years have witnessed numerous articles, films, books, and other projects touching upon myriad subjects related to the expedition. All the efforts have at least one thing in common-they rely on information about the expedition gleaned . from its documentary heritage. Whether novels, children’s 1 books, cookbooks, or even cartoons, all published sources , rely inevitably on some grounding in fact. Historians, especially, in their published articles and 1 books, rely almost exclusively on these surviving documents. Without them, this odyssey would be largely unknown, for the letters, journals, reports, maps, and other documentary sources of those who participated in the epic journey provide us with the vast majority of what we know about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. \ But the documentary legacy is incomplete. Sources are yet missing. Like a huge puzzle, the sources are the pieces that complete the picture. Without those sources-those pieces-we have blank spaces. Whenever a researcher dis- covers another piece, it helps complete the picture. In trying 7 to assemble an ever-more complete Lewis and Clark Expedition “picture,” newly found pieces rightly elicit great interest and -6 excitement. In the summer of 2003 librarians located two exciting and important “piec- Portrait of Meriwether es” of the Lewis and Clark puzzle at the Cincinnati Historical Society Library Lewis by Charles of the Cincinnati Museum Center (see sidebar by Ruby Rogers). Residing Peale, 1807. Independence National Histovical Park in the Library’s Torrence Papers were two Lewis and Clark Expedition-date collection, letters that Captain Meriwether Lewis wrote to his friend, James Findlay of

FALL 2004 19 FAIRLY LAUNCHED ON MY VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Cincinnati. (A third letter from Lewis to Findlay, dated October 1, 1801 as well as William Clark letters and documents were also found. Because they do not pertain directly to the expedition itself, the editor has not included them here.) Lewis wrote the first letter on March 26, 1803, in the early days of the expedition while he was at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), making preparations for the journey. This important “piece” provides information about the early days of the expedition, the crucial planning, preparation, and recruit- ment phase recognized today as part of the expedition’s “Eastern Legacy.” Published originally in a 1909 issue of the Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, it soon faded from notice and from memory. During the mid- twentieth century, when renowned Lewis and Clark scholar Donald Jackson edited The Letters of the Reference librarian Lewis and Clark Expedition, Lewis’s Harpers Ferry letter escaped his notice Anne Shepherd and Jim and remained undetected for another twenty-five years. Holmberg examining a page from the 1804 letter. Cincinnati Museum Center, he second letter from Lewis was listed in the Torrence Papers’ inventory, Cincinnati Historical Tfiled away, and lay largely unnoticed for more than a century. This fate Society Library 1 was partly attributable to the letter’s incomplete condition. Only the first four pages of what originally was a longer letter were present; consequently, it lacked the signature of the letter’s author. Catalogers confirmed only its date, place of origin, and recipient. To those not familiar with the history of the expedition, “Missouri River above the Poncarra Vilage, September 6th1804,” the letter’s heading, meant little if anything and elicited no further investiga-

“Re-discovery” of the Meriwether the least part of his gift. He made over to the Society a mass of letters and documents of every sort. Related as is Lewis Expedition Letters in the his family to the Findlays, the Harrisons, the Whitemans, Torrence Papers the Irvins, all of whom have been prominent in the de- velopment of Cincinnati, he had in his hands documents e 1885 annual report for the Historical and of the highest value for the local history of our city and ThPhilosophical Society of Ohio [HPSO] (one of the going back almost to its foundation.” Aaron Torrence predecessor organizations of Cincinnati Museum Center was the son of Judge George Paul1 Torrence, a prominent at Union Terminal) noted that Aaron Torrence donated lawyer and jurist. sixty-seven volumes and 630 pamphlets. The following The Society’s librarians certainly recognized the im- year Torrence contributed another forty volumes. The portance of the manuscript collection as they organized 1886 HPSO report elaborated: “But printed matter was it and published a twenty-one-page catalogue in 1887.

20 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY tion. In 1948 a flicker of interest in the letter occurred but failed to ignite more than brief curiosity among staff. The bicentennial of the expedition changed all of this. In 2003, librarian Anne Shepherd noticed the inventory listing of the letter and she immediately suspected who might have written it. Library staff pursued the matter until they verified the letter’s author and authenticity. Subsequent press announcements resurrected Lewis’s 1803 letter along with his rediscovered 1804 letter. Worldwide media attention and gratitude to the Cincinnati Museum Center staff for rediscovering these important Lewis and Clark Expedition letters quickly followed.

ow is it that Meriwether Lewis came to know James Findlay and to write these letters to him? Lewis journeyed west to the Northwest HTerritory in 1795 where, in Ohio and perhaps more specifically Cincin- nati, he met Findlay. A native of Albemarle County, Virginia, Lewis received a commission as an ensign in the army in 1795 and reported to the Ohio frontier to join Gen. Anthony Wayne’s victorious legion. Just a year before, Wayne’s forces had defeated an Indian confederacy, breaking the tribes’ will to continue their struggle to keep the Americans out of their country and compelling them to sue for peace. In Ohio, Lewis met his future partner in discovery, William Clark. Clark was then a first lieutenant, a three-year veteran and seasoned cam- paigner, and he briefly served as Lewis’s commanding officer. Fort Washington James Findlay. Cincinnati was a major base for the army and their duties and furloughs often took both Museum Centev, Cincinnati Clark and Lewis to the post and the neighboring frontier town of Cincinnati. Historical Society Library During one of those times both men met and became friends with Findlay. Born in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1770, James Findlay cast his lot with the Ohio country when in 1793 he moved to Cincinnati and opened a store. Most likely, it was in his capacity as a merchant that he met Lewis and Clark. The latter wrote the firm of Smith and Findlay in December 1794 and his orders appear in their 1794-1795 store accounts.’ Findlay would later

Eugene Bliss, an active member of HPSO, sorted the collection into fifty-seven boxes and prepared the published catalogue. Boxes 1 to 29 contain 1,897 letters and personal papers, including letters to and from Lewis Cass, Daniel Drake, Albert Gallatin, William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, Nicholas Longworth, Zebulon M. Pike, Arthur St. Clair, John Cleves Symmes, Edward Tiffin and Anthony Wayne. In addition to the letters, there are twenty-eight boxes of other documents: army and militia orders, land plats, bills, receipts, account books, land contracts, etc. In sorting the collection, Bliss put nine items in box 32 that he titled “Manuscripts.” The

FALL 2004 21 FAIRLY LAUNCHED ON MY VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

become a lawyer and politician, who would serve in a number of appointed and elected positions, including the territorial and state legislature, United States marshal, mayor of Cincinnati, militia officer (rising to the rank of brigadier general), and U.S. representative. He would have inhabited the same social circle as that of many of the army officers, including the future explorers, and was someone whose acquaintance they would have sought to cultivate. The three became friends over the ensuing Harpers Ferry in 1803. years and maintained a correspondence. Thanks to that friendship we have Harpers Ferry National these important rediscovered Lewis and Clark Expedition-date letters. Park, National Park Service n mid-March 1803, Capt. Meriwether Lewis set out from Washington for Harpers Ferry, Lancaster, and Philadelphia. A couple of weeks earlier, ICongress had provided $2,500 in funding for President Thomas Jefferson’s proposed western expedition. Lewis, by this time, had been living with the President for two years, serving as his private secretary. When Jefferson’s long-desired hope for an exploring venture to the Pacific began to become a reality in early 1803, the Sage of Monticello tapped his assistant to lead the undertaking. Tutored by Jefferson himself, the young explorer also traveled to Harpers Ferry and then on to Pennsylvania to order arms and supplies and for additional tutoring in the sciences and medicine. At this time he and Jefferson envisioned that the future Corps of Discovery would number less than twenty men and it would be another three months before Lewis invited William Clark

first item in the box is entitled, “Fragment of Letter from the Society’s journal. No record exists that indicates the Missouri River, 1804.” whether either of them wondered about the possible From 1906 to 1911, HPSO published selected letters significance of the September1 804 letter fragment from from the Torrence Papers in its journals. Dr. Isaac Joslin the Missouri River. Cox, an assistant professor at the University of Cincin- The 1804 letter contains a penciled notation along nati, edited 176 letters for publication, including the the left side of the first page: “Mrs. Heiser thinks this March 26, 1803 letter from Meriwether Lewis to James was written by Merriwether Lewis 3/6/48.” A resident Findlay. Dr. Cox did not publish the September 1804 of Hamilton, Ohio, Alta Harvey Heiser was a dedicated letter fragment. In 1918 HPSO published a variety of local historian and a prolific author of books and news- army and militia orders and records from the Torrence paper articles. She evidently came across this letter in Papers. Both Dr. Cox and Belle Hamlin, the Society’s her research and concluded that Meriwether Lewis had librarian, must have spent countless hours studying the written it. In 1948 the possibility that the Historical Torrence Papers as they selected the items to publish in Society owned a Lewis and Clark expedition letter did

22 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY no great loss, “as this man does not speake any of the languages to the Weste of the Mississippi.”2 The Lewis-Conner connec- 2 803 letter and envelope, tion has been a bit of a mystery, one of those areas of the puzzle needing more Ckiflnatihfuseum Center, Cincinnati “pieces.” Lewis’s letter to James Findlay provides them. Historical Society Library

Harper’s Ferry3 State of Virginia March 26th1803. Dear Findley, The inclosed letter to Mr. John Conner4 is somewhat interesting to the Public, and is of much importance to myself; I therefore trust you will pardon the trouble I am about to give you relative to it’s safe conveyance: will you be not attract much interest or attention. and James Holmberg, have confirmed Anne’s conviction. In July 2003 Anne Shepherd, reference librarian at the In September 2003 Cincinnati Museum Center put the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, searched the regis- re-discovered Lewis and Clark letters on exhibit and ter of the Torrence Papers in an effort to assist a library garnered national and international attention. patron interested in early military history. As she scanned We are delighted to have these hitherto overlooked the pages of the register, her eyes stopped at the entry and historically significant letters edited by James J. “Fragment of Letter from the Missouri River, 1804.” Holmberg, a nationally recognized expert on Lewis and Immediately intrigued, Anne retrieved box 32. After Clark, and published in Ohio Valley History. reading the four-page letter fragment and then comparing it with the complete letter written by Lewis on March Ruby Rogers, Director 26,1803, Anne was convinced that the author was Meri- Cincinnati Historical Society Library wether Lewis. Lewis and Clark scholars, Gary Moulton Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal

FALL 2004 23 FAIRLY LAUNCHED ON MY VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

so good as to forward this letter under cover to Capt. Hamilton at the bigspring, or any friend of yours at Fort Hamilt~n,~with a request that they would forward it to him Mr. Canner[,] by a confidential Indian or other person: in that manner it would most probably reach him safely and in due time - Mr. Conner is an Indian Trader residing at one of the Deleware towns on White River; and is the same who visited the seat of Government last winter in the capacity of an Inter- preter to Long-beard a Miami Chief,6 and his party. - Perhaps it would also be well to request your friend to desire Mr. Conner’s Agent or Clerk at the Deleware town, in the event of his absence from that place, to employ a confidential Indian to take the letter to him wherever he may be; I am confident Conner would not hesitate to make ample compensation to such person for his trouble. - My compliments to Mrs. Findley,’ and believe me

Your friend & Obt. Sevt. - Capt. James Findley } Meriwether Lewis.

1 804 letter, p.1, Cincinnati ewis’s second expedition-date letter to Findlay is even more significant. Museum Center, Cincinnati Penned from more than one thousand miles up the Missouri River in Historical Society Library Learly September 1804, Lewis provides news of the expedition and a description of the country through which the explorers have passed. He does all this after dispensing with a matter much on his mind: land interests in Ohio. We are very fortunate to have even just the first four pages of the letter. But knowing this letter exists and having those four pages certainly make one wish the missing portion of the letter (two pages? four pages?) had not been separated. What other things might Lewis have related? This letter contains a description of the country up to that point more thoroughly concise than is given in the journals, reports, or letters with one exception: a letter Lewis wrote to his mother on March 31, 1805, prior to leaving Fort Mandan. In fact, portions of this letter and the one to his mother are essentially the same. Entire sentences are word for word the same; only the order of the letters dif- fers. In reading both letters one can speculate that the missing portion of the letter might have contained a description of the Missouri to the point to which the Corps had ascended it. Lewis must have been referring to some report that he or Clark had prepared on the country to write such similar, even identical, passages in letters written almost seven months apart. If that journal entry or report exists it has escaped the editor’s attention. Lewis’s natural history

24 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY observations survive but do not contain a description of the pronghorn as detailed as the one given Findlay. Only Clark’s September 14 description of a “Goat” he killed exceeds this one, yet some of the information is different. All of which begs the question: how did this letter get sent to Findlay? No record exists in the journals of the captains sending letters downstream in the late summer or fall of 1804. But they might have. Some of the engag6s returned downriver after being discharged in early November. Perhaps they carried letters. Jefferson and others made references in late 1804 and early 1805 about receiving reports of Lewis and Clark, but did not indicate how they were received. Until the discovery of this letter to Findlay, no researcher has yet found any written communication sent back downstream before the spring of 1805. It is possible that Lewis wrote the letter but did not actually send it until April 1805, but that scenario seems unlikely. More likely a trader or returning engag6 carried it down the Missouri. No reference to this letter exists either in Findlay’s personal papers or in the Cincinnati newspaper The Western Spy. Findlay would certainly have shared this letter with others, and if so the newspaper likely would have published it 1804 letter, p.2, Cincinnati or at least reported on its contents. If it did, the article has evaded detection Museum Center, Cincinnati or that particular issue is perhaps missing. Thankfully, with the rediscovery of Historical Society Library this letter we now have the earliest known report by one of the members of the Corps of Discovery of the American West that they had set out to explore.

Dear Findley, Missouri River above the Poncarra Vilage,’ September 6th 1804

I here inclose twenty dollars in bank bills intended for the payment of the taxes which are now, or may hereafter become due on a certain tract of Land entered and recorded in the name of John Marks, lying on the waters of brush Creek & containing about 4,000 acres; you would much oblige me therefore by transmitting this money to the Auditor, or other proper officer of your State for the receipt of taxes on the lands of nonresidents. I have paid the taxes on this land untill the year 1804 inclusive, and had made the necessary arrangements as I conceived for the payment of the taxes on tkK land it as the same might become due, untill the year 1805 inclusive; but from information received about the moment, and in the hurry of my departure from St. Louis, I

FALL 2004 25 FAIRLY LAUNCHED ON MY VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

have reason to believe that the gentleman to whom I had intrusted this business has not executed it with good faith. should this be the case I fear without the timely attention of some of my friends, that the land may be lost, or at least in part forfited for the payment of it’s taxes. -this tract is undivided; 840 acres of it only belongs to me; 1333, to the orphan children of John Marks, and the ballance to the heirs or assignees of John Todd decsd. - shoul[d] any part of this land have been sold for taxes, will you be so good as to recover it in my name by some compremise with the purchaser. that portion of it at least which belongs to the orphans I presume may be recovered by payment of the arrears of the taxes due on it; and it is my wish that if any sacrifice is to be made that it should fall on that proportion which belongs to myself !! -9 I now feel myself fairly launched on my voyage of discovery, having m ascended this river nearly eleven hundred miles. my object is, if possible, to discover a p,r[,]acticable watere communication across the Continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean, which I hope to effect by means of this river, and the Columbia or Oregan river, which discharges itself .into the[,] Pacific Ocean about two hundred miles south of Nootka Sound -there are substantial grounds for a belief that these rivers derive their sources from the same quarter 1804 letter, p.3, Cincinnati Museum Center, of the continent, and I think it not improbable that some of their navigable Cincinnati Historical streams may pass contiguous to each other; be this as it may I am determined Society Library to leave no expedient untryed to effect a passage to the Ocian either by water or land.1° My party consists of twenty six healthy, robust, active young men, accustomed to fatiegue and danger; most of them good hunters & all of them good boatmen, and above all who feel equally with myself, an enthusiasm in accomplish- ing the objects of this enterprise.” we are well armed, and have now but little to fear from the opposition of the Savages, having passed those nations from whom most danger was to be apprehended.” game is very abundant, and seems to encrease as we progress. on the lower portion of the Missouri, from it’s junction with the Mississippi to the mouth of the Osage river we met with some deer, Bear & turkies - from thence to the Cancez river, the deer were more abundant, a great number of bear, some turkies, Gees Swan and ducks; from thence to the mouth of the river Platte, an immence quantity of deer, some Bear Elk & turkies some geese swan and ducks - from thence to the mouth of the river Souix, some deer, a great quantity of Elk, the bear disappear almost intirely, some turkies gees swan and ducks. from thence to our present station, vast herds of Buffaloe, & Elk; some deer and turkies; we have also seen a few Cabre or wild goat, and a few deer of a different species

26 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY from that common to a large proportion of the continent of N. America; but as ,,as[,] I have not been able as yet to procure a Subject of either of those anamals I cannot enter into a minute discription of them.13 The Cabre, as nearly as I could discover from a distant view with a small refracting telescope, is about the size, and somewhat the form of the Scotch goat, tho’ reather more delicately formed; the back, sides, and neck ap- peared to be of a whiteish brown colour, the belly and iner part of the thighs, fore legs, & brest, nearly white; I could discover neither horns or beard tho’ they certainly possess the former. [J this anamal generally feeds in the open praries, is extreemly watchful1 and verey fleet, insomuch, that they seldom flee to the woods to avoid pursuit, but placing a just confidence in their own superior fleetness take their cource through the open plains, and seem to set their pursuers at defiance, while they invite pursuit. - The Ottoes, Missouris and Souixs, whom I have seen, inform me that they have frequently pursued the CabrC on horseback, but from their fleetness and durebility found it impracticable to overtake them. it would be almost impossible to take or kill this anamal was it not from his inquisitive disposition; of this the hunter 1804 letter, p.4, Cincinnati takes advantage, and concealing himself in some convenient place confines a Museum Center, Cincinnati handkerchief a piece of cloth or skin to the end of a stick which he holds up to Historical Society Library the view of the CabrC taking care to keep it in constantly in notion [motion], the attention of the Cabre being thus attracted the hunter is almost certain of success as he will then approach within a very few paces, praticularly if the wind blows and the hunter is to the leward. - The Black-tale Deer my hunters have seen, and from their discription as well as that of ,the[,] French Engages who are acquainted with this anamal, they differ very little from the red deer; perhaps in no other particular but that of the colour of the tale. - I am agreeably disappointed in the opinion I had formed of the country bordering on the Missouri, particularly of that portion of it above the mouth of the river Platte, which from previous information I had been led to believe, was barren steril & sandy; on the contrary I found it fertile in the extreem, well watered, the soil consisting of a fine black loam from one to twenty feet in debth, intermixed with particles of talk [talc], and a sufficient quantity of sand only, to induce a luxuriant growth of grass and other vegatable productions, particularly such as are not subject to be much injured or intirely distroyed by fire. to the ravages of this element, in my opinion, is justly attributable the great scarcity of timber we find from the river Platte to this place. the country

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bordering on this .portion of the[,] Missouri, and extending on both sides to an immence distance, is one continued Prarie, in which no timber appears but a few detatched and scattered copse which from their moist situations, or the steep declivities of hills, are sheltered from the effects of the fire. the face of the country is level, insomuch as the perception of the eye will enable the spectator [remainder of Letter missing].8

1. The editor would like to thank Ruby Rogers and Anne 1801 John and his brother, William, had settled themselves Shepherd of the Cincinnati Museum Center for their as traders in Indiana among the Delaware Indians, William assistance with this article. Clark to Smith and Finley on the White River (near present Noblesville) and John at [Findlay], December 8, 1794, Torrence Papers, box 4, Buckongahelas’ Town (near present Muncie). Thompson no. 48, Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati states that by 1803 or 1804 John Conner had moved from Museum Center [hereinafter cited as CHSL]; Smith and the White River south to the Whitewater River at present Findlay’s Ledger, 1793-1795, Torrence Papers, v. 15, CHSL; Cedar Grove. Meriwether Lewis actually gives both Sutler’s Book, 1795, Torrence Papers, box 56, no. 6, CHSL. locations in his letters regarding Conner, stating that Conner Both Lewis and Clark routinely misspell Findlay’s name. had a trading post at the Delaware town on the White River Lewis spells it “Findley” in his 1803 and 1804 letters. in his letters to Jefferson, Clark, and Findlay but describing the Cedar Grove location. Presumably Findlay passed along 2. Donald Jackson, ed., The Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), v. 1, Lewis’s letter intended for Conner enclosed with the March 116, 123. 26 letter to him. (The other letters to Conner were sent to Capt. Hamilton and Capt. McClellan.) After making 3. Harpers Ferry is located at the confluence of the Potomac contact with Conner, Clark reported that Conner did not and Shenandoah Rivers. In 1802 the federal government receive the letter (which of the three letters he received is not began full production at its new arsenal there. Lewis known) until July 17, after Lewis’s stated date of departure. traveled there from Washington to order weapons, Whether Conner regretted not accompanying the Corps of accoutrements, and other items, including pipe tomahawks Discovery is not known; he most likely did not. If Clark for Indian presents. It was also there that he helped design had managed to retain Conner’s services as an interpreter, and oversaw the construction of the “Experiment,” a the captains might not have sought those of George collapsible iron frame boat that could be assembled and Drouillard and Drouillard almost certainly was the more disassembled for river travel. If successful, it would have significant recruit. Both Clark and Jefferson had concerns been a noteworthy and possibly useful addition to water about Conner, and they certainly did not regret him navigation. Unfortunately, for the want of pine trees to declining Lewis’s invitation. Lewis himself stated he did not produce pitch to seal the seams of the skins covering the regret Conner’s refusal, going so far as to say that Conner frame, the boat leaked and the Corps abandoned it upon had deceived him. Conner went on to enjoy a successful its launching at the head of the Great Falls of the Missouri career as a businessman and was active in Indian and civic in July 1805. Lewis had spent a month at Harpers Ferry, affairs in Indiana. He served as an interpreter for Indian most of the time being devoted to his boat project. He left delegations to Washington and at treaty negotiations, was a Washington on March 15, 1803, and arrived in Harpers signatory to nine Indian treaties between 1805 to 1818, and Ferry the next day, but he did not depart for Lancaster served five terms in the Indiana legislature. In 1820 he was until April 18. This proved the first of what would one of the commissioners appointed to select the site for become a number of delays (some as a result of Lewis’s the state’s new capital city: Indianapolis. Thompson, Sons procrastination) that slowed the expedition during its first of the Wilderness, passim; Charles N. Thompson Letters, year. Lewis returned to Harpers Ferry on July 7 on his way Scrapbook, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis; Jackson, to Pittsburgh, where the expedition’s keelboat was being Letters oftbe Lewis and Clark Expedition, v. 1, 37-38,40n- built, to arrange for the shipment of his items. Jackson, 4111, 44, 116, 118, 123, 125, 130. Letters ofthe Lewis and Clark Expedition, v. 1, 27, 37; Supplied for Survival: Meriwether Lewis at Harpers Ferry 5. Lewis mentioned both Capt. Hamilton and Fort Hamilton (Harpers Ferry, WV.: Harpers Ferry National Historical in letters to Jefferson dated April 20, 1803, and to Clark Park, 2003), 1-5. dated August 3, 1803. Although referring to Conner living on White River, the mention of Hamilton and old Fort 4. John Conner (1775-1826) is one of those products of the Hamilton seems to confirm that Lewis knew Conner was frontier who inhabited both the Indian and Euro-American at his new residence on the Whitewater River. Cincinnati’s worlds. Information about his early life is contradictory. proximity to old Fort Hamilton and apparently Capt. Newspaper accounts tend to be unreliable. The single Hamilton, as well as to Conner’s trading post, made best, documented source is Charles N. Thompson, Sons of Findlay a sensible conduit for what Lewis believed to be a the Wilderness: John and William Conner (Indianapolis: communication and invitation of the utmost importance. Indiana Historical Society, 1937). Connor’s father, Richard, By 1803 Lewis’s Fort Hamilton was actually the town was a native of Maryland who settled in the Moravian of Hamilton, founded on the site of the earlier fort, Indian towns of Ohio. His mother had been captured by both named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Lewis the Shawnee as a child and raised among them. During the undoubtedly had visited the post while serving in the area Revolution, Conner was sympathetic to the American cause in 1795-96 and thus was referring to the town that had but lived among Indian tribes that were hostile to Americans sprung up on the site using the old post’s name. Gen. and under British influence. In 1781 the Conners and Arthur St. Clair ordered the post built in September 1791 other Moravians were forcefully removed to Detroit where as part of his campaign northward against Little Turtle and Richard subsequently settled on a farm in the area. By May his Indian confederacy. It remained in use as a supply depot

28 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY through Gen. Anthony Wayne’s 1794 Indian campaign, the east fork of Brush Creek. Lewis’s late stepfather, John but the army abandoned it and it was dismantled by 1796. Marks, left the land as part of his estate. Lewis had been Capt. Hamilton likely was John Hamilton, who lived in trying to obtain patents on the two tracts since at least 1801 Cincinnati and later Butler County, Ohio, near Hamilton, when he enlisted the help of William Clark. The latter had and who served with the Third Detachment of Ohio militia stopped in Washington in June 1801 while traveling from in the War of 1812. Big Spring might have been his farm or Virginia to Philadelphia and apparently visited his friend other landmark; that location was not found in a search of (and perhaps met with Jefferson). Before they parted, geographical names for that area of Ohio. This Hamilton Lewis gave Clark an authorization to investigate where is almost certainly the same Capt. Hamilton that Donald the matter stood, attempt to get the plats and certificates Jackson identifies as living in Cincinnati in 1798 and serving for the parcels, and try to determine how to best proceed as an interpreter in 1799. Ohio History Central/Fort in order to obtain the patents. On July 2, 1803, before Hamilton website: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.ore/ setting out from Washington on the expedition, Lewis ohc/historv/h indian/places/fhamilt.shtml ; Butler County, sent the patents for the two Marks children’s portion of Ohio/Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument website: the land (apparently totaling 1,333 acres) to their mother, http://www.butlercountyohio.ordmonument/fort hamilton. Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks of Charlottesville, by h;Ohio Militia in the War of 1812 website: http://www. way of Thomas Jefferson. Therefore, Clark’s efforts and ohiohistorv.ordresource/database/rosters.html;Jackson, probably those of others had been successful in confirming Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, v. 1, 38, 116, title to at least 2,173 acres. In 1798 Lewis’s half-brother, 4111. John Hastings Marks, sold seven hundred acres of the 6. Lewis’s mention here of Conner’s recent visit to Washington tract (he had earlier sold three hundred acres). Because with an Indian delegation might explain how Lewis knew Lewis references the entire four thousand acres, he was him. Jefferson’s secretary most likely was present when apparently unaware of his brother’s actions. Who Lewis Indian delegations visited the “Great White Father.” Lewis had entrusted with payment of the taxes on the land and must have been impressed with the young interpreter to whom he believed had neglected that duty is not known. try to recruit him so quickly for the expedition. Possibly John Todd (1750-1782) was a native of Pennsylvania who Lewis had met Conner while in the Detroit area several was educated in Virginia and who studied law under and years earlier since that was Conner’s home before moving to served as military aide to Lewis’s relative, Gen. Andrew Indiana. Long Beard was also known as Owl. Thompson Lewis. Todd came to Kentucky in 1775 and became one of locates his village as near the mouth of the West Fork of Kentucky’s most prominent citizens. He served with George the White River in present Daviess County, Indiana. A Rogers Clark in his Illinois campaign, was appointed civil Miami chief named Owl is listed as a signatory to treaties governor of the Illinois country by Patrick Henry, and when negotiated by William H. Harrison in the early 1800s. he was killed in the Battle of Blue Licks he left extensive Thompson, Sons of the Wilderness, 205; Ohio Valley- land holdings in Kentucky, Tennessee, and, from Lewis’s Great Lakes Ethnohistory Archives: The Miami Collection comment, Ohio. Clifford Neal Smith, comp., Federal Land website: http://www.gbl.indiana.edu/Pot2/TS1a.html . Series (Chicago: American Library Association, 1986), v. 4, pt. 1, 54, 144; Meriwether Lewis to William Clark, June 7. Like her husband, Jane Irwin Findlay was a native of 27, 1801, William Clark Papers, box 11, folder 7, Missouri Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, who moved with her husband Historical Society, St. Louis; Jackson, Letters ofthe Lewis to Cincinnati in 1793 shortly after their marriage. In and Clark Expedition, v. 1, 101; John E. Kleber, et al, eds, 1841 she lived in the White House during William Henry The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Harrison’s brief presidency. Her niece, Jane Irwin, had Kentucky, 1992),887. been raised in the Findlay household and married William Henry Harrison, J. Mrs. Findlay accompanied her niece 10. Lewis and Clark’s destination was no secret. As early to Washington at the invitation of President Harrison to as the summer of 1803, speculation abounded and in help with hostess duties when his own wife was too ill December 1803 Lewis and Clark publicly revealed their to travel to Washington. She died in Cincinnati in 1851. true destination. Lewis’s statement of the Corps’ objective Findlay Market/General James Findlay website: http://www. thus would have been no surprise to Findlay; indeed he findlavmarket.ordgen lames findlav.htm; R.L. Heminger, might have heard the real goal of the journey from Lewis The (Findlay, Ohio) Courier Opinion (electronic edition)/ himself when the latter was with him in the fall of 1803. Historical HighlightsIJames Findlay: httd/www.thecourier. Lewis arrived in Cincinnati on September 28 on his way comlopinion/historic/RLO4140O.htm . down the Ohio to rendezvous with Clark in Louisville. He left Cincinnati on October 4 or 5, stopping at Big Bone 8. On September 5, the Corps had passed the mouth of Lick, Kentucky, to gather specimens of prehistoric animals Ponca Creek. The Ponca village was two miles up the for Thomas Jefferson. Findlay accompanied him to the creek. Ponca Creek empties into the Missouri River near lick. Not only were they friends but Lewis had recruited the present town of Verdel, Nebraska. The Ponca were Findlay in his attempt to contact John Conner in the spring a small Siouan-speaking tribe. They were horticulturists of 1803 (see March 26, 1803, letter). Discovering the who journeyed onto the plains for buffalo. Lewis and fabled Northwest Passage was, of course, one of the Corps’ Clark failed to meet with them because they were away on primary directives from Jefferson; that they did not do so a buffalo hunt. The expedition’s campsite on September was disappointing, but it did help lay to rest the myth of 6, 1804, was in present South Dakota across the Missouri a “practicable water communication across the Continent from the Knox-Boyd (Nebraska) county line. Gary E. of North America.” The Oregon River, also known as Moulton, ed., TheJournals of the Lewis and Clark the “Great River of the West,” was believed to have its Expedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), v. headwaters near those of the Missouri, thus encouraging 3, 48-52. exploration of a practicable portage between the two rivers 9. Even though more than a thousand miles up the Missouri, to establish the existence of a transcontinental water route. Lewis and Clark did not forget their business interests back By the early 1800s the Columbia was generally believed home. The land Lewis was concerned about is located to be that “great river,” thus the reason Lewis mentions southeast of present Hillsboro in Highland County, Ohio, both rivers. Geographers had not ascertained where the on the east fork of Brush Creek and the Elk Run branch of Columbia’s headwaters lay, projecting them to lay east at

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about the same longitude from where most believed the 13. Lewis’s overview of the type and amount of game being Missouri River began. This belief was consistent with the encountered is very similar to the phrasing and content of then widely accepted pyramidal height-of-land theory that his March 31, 1805, letter to his mother. The ordering of stated the major rivers of the West all rose from a plateau the subjects is, however, different. In the Lucy Marks letter in the Rocky Mountains and radiated outward. Another Lewis described the countryside before he described the accepted concept was that of geographical symmetry in game. The concise overview to Findlay and later his mother which the western half of the North American continent does not appear in that form in other expedition documents was believed to mirror the eastern half. Thus Lewis and to this editor’s knowledge. Lewis’s description of the Clark anticipated the Rockies being similar in size and pronghorn (often incorrectly referred to as an antelope) is appearance to the Appalachians. The expedition disproved largely unique. He was clearly excited to have seen this both of these long-held and accepted theories. Lewis’s “new” species, one about which he has asked the Indians. use of Nootka Sound as his reference point referenced the The explorers made their first sighting of the “goat” or voyages of James Cook, George Vancouver, and others to “cabri.” on September 3. Lewis noted on September 5 in the northwest coast of North America; it was by 1803 well his natural history journal that they had not been able to get mapped and Nootka Sound was a recognizable reference close enough to them yet even to describe their color. Clark point which was indeed some two hundred miles north of noted that they observed goats on the evening of September the mouth of the Columbia. Jackson, Letters ofthe Lewis 6. Perhaps Lewis was able to make his rather detailed and Clark Expedition, v. 1, 126-27; John Logan Allen, observation by use of his telescope at that time and with the Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest zoological thrill being so fresh in his mind he related it to (New York: Dover Publications, 1991), 19,23,26, 30-31 Findlay and in no other form. Lewis noted measurements [published originally as Passage through the Garden: Lewis of a male pronghorn on September 14, using the one Clark and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest killed that day. Clark’s description in his journal for that (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975)]. same day is similar to Lewis’s September 6 description. 11. Lewis’s reference to the party in the singular possessive, On September 17, Lewis described the pronghorns’ habits rather than as being both his and Clark‘s, seems unusual. while trying to acquire a female specimen but gave no He did the same thing earlier in the letter when he referred physical description. No record exists of Lewis having to “my voyage.” Yet such phrasing was typical during that written a description of the pronghorn other than the one era; Clark, too, did this on occasion. By early September in this letter. The black tail deer mentioned were mule the Corps was coalescing into a true team and family. deer and were observed for the first time on September 5. There were still problems, particularly with John Newman Clark briefly described one on September 17 but Lewis did and Moses Reed, who the captains dismissed from the not. Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, party and sent back to St. Louis with the keelboat in the v. 1, 222-25; Moulton, Journals of the Lewis and Clark spring of 1805. Only two weeks earlier the explorers Expedition, v. 3,44,46n, 48,50, 70-71,73n, 81-83, had experienced a death among them. Sgt. Charles Floyd 86n; Paul Russell Cutright, Lewis and Clark: Pioneering had died on August 20 of what is believed to have been Naturalists (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1989; reprint a ruptured appendix, the Corps’s only fatality. Many Urbana, Ill., 1969), 81-82. good hunters were among the men, particularly George 14. Some of the content in this paragraph is also very similar Drouillard and the “Nine Young Men from Kentucky,” to Lewis’s March 31, 1805, letter to his mother. Two and the unpredictable and dangerous Missouri had made such similar descriptions suggests strongly that Lewis was all the men excellent boatmen. Their quick action and skill working from a master document of some kind. He kept saved the keelboat from serious accident on a number of both botanical and natural history notes on the journey. occasions. Oddly, Lewis does not mention his co-captain, Some of this information is scattered in the expedition William Clark, an especially noticeable omission given journals and reports but a survey of them and known that Lewis undoubtedly knew that Findlay and Clark also correspondence failed to reveal a similar statement, were friends. Perhaps he mentioned Clark in the portion especially one that could have served as the model for of the letter missing. He also does not include the French his letters to his mother and Findlay. If he did have engagts and temporary detachment of soldiers with the such a document it is not known to exist today. Lewis’s party helping the expedition advance up the Missouri as far observation about the fertility of the plains they were as the Mandan villages. That Lewis does refer to them in passing through was unacknowledged for many years, the the letter suggests that he was drawing a definite distinction observations of former and later travelers and explorers between the permanent and temporary detachments of the of the barren, treeless nature of the plains solidified in the party. William Clark’s enslaved African American York also myth of the “Great American Desert.” This misconception is omitted from Lewis’s count. lasted into the mid-nineteenth century when homesteaders 12. This was a major misstatement by Lewis. The Corps’ began venturing out onto the grasslands and realized the most serious confrontations with Indians were still ahead region’s agricultural potential. One can only speculate of them. In fact, their confrontation with the Brulk Teton on whatever else Lewis wrote his friend back in the Ohio Sioux was less than three weeks away. They would have Valley; Lewis’s letter to his mother can be used as a possible tense relations with other tribes and Lewis himself would be guide. Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, involved in a fight with a party of Blackfeet that resulted in V. 1, 222-25. the deaths of two Indians. The tribes Lewis believed were a threat to them (and who they had been warned about) were the Kansa and Yankton Sioux. They did not encounter the Kansa and had a friendly visit with the Yankton.

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