September 23, 2012 - Lewis and Clark Return!

 – 1806

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their “Corps of Discovery” made the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back, returning to St. Louis, Missouri, on this date in 1806. The trip took more than two years, yet everyone returned except one man, Sergeant Charles Floyd, who died of infection from a ruptured appendix, (Floyd would surely have died even if he'd stayed home in civilization, as there was at that time no known cure for appendicitis.)

The group included:

   2   captains

   3   sergeants

  23  privates

   5   civilians

The civilians famously included Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian explorer and trader; his wife Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman who acted as an interpreter for the Lewis and Clark expedition; and their infant son Jean-Baptiste, nicknamed Little Pomp or Pompy.

By the way, did you know that Pompey's Pillar in Montana is named for Jean-Baptiste? Also, he is the only child to ever be depicted on a U.S. coin, since his image appears with his mother's on the Sacagawea dollar.

National Geographic has a “Go West Across America with Lewis and Clark” game. The website offers many other resources as well. 

Wart Games offers many links about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Explore away! 

Also on this date:

Physicist Fizeau's birthday 

February 11, 2012 - Birth of Sacagawea's Bouncing Baby Boy

– 1805

When she was about 12 years old, she was kidnapped from her own Shoshone Indian tribe by Hidatsa Indians.

When she was around 13 years old, she was purchased by (and married off to) a French fur trapper.

When she was 14 years old, she became pregnant.

Now, just 15 years old, she was living in a fort with her husband and a whole lot of English-speaking white men who were part of the Corps of Discovery (which we call the Lewis and Clark Expedition). Her husband had been hired as interpreter—even though it was she who knew the Shoshone language the group desired!

And her baby was ready to be born...

This Sacagawea dollar honors
the brave teenage mom/
interpreter/explorer!

Sacagawea gave birth to little Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on this date in 1805. One of the other Indian interpreters helped out by “administering” crushed rattlesnake rattles to speed the delivery. (I have no idea how or where he “administered the crushed rattles – did he make them into a paste and smear it somewhere? Did he make the rattles into a drink? Or did he just lay the crushed rattles on Sacagawea's hand?)

William Clark nicknamed the baby “Pompy.” And when the expedition left the fort and went up the Missouri in their canoes, Sacagawea held little Pompy the whole way!

By the way...

When Pompy was just three months old, one of the expedition's boats capsized. Sacagawea was able to stay calm and rescue several items that fell out of the boat, including Lewis and Clark's journals and records. The corps commanders commended her for her quick action and named the river Sacagawea in her honor.

Sacagawea and Little Pompy had many other adventures on the expedition, traveling from what is now North Dakota to Oregon and then back again. Read about some of them here.  (Click the various words “interpreter,” “her return home,” and so forth.) The story of Sacagawea is also told here and, in a briefer version, here. 

Also on this date:

National Inventors' Day 

National Foundation Day in Japan 

November 17, 2009

Anniversary of Lewis and Clark reaching the “Ocian” Historic anniversaries are not always easy to pin down. Various sources give different dates on which the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the Pacific Ocean. We do know a lot about the famous expedition: it was arranged by President Thomas Jefferson with the directive to explore the Pacific northwest; and it was led by William Clark, Meriwether Lewis, and their Indian guide Sacajawea. We know a lot of details of the journey because Lewis and Clark mapped the areas they explored and recorded notes on 100 species of animals, approximately 176 plants, native American cultures, landforms, and rivers. We also know that Clark wrote in his journal, on November 7, 1805, "Ocian in view! O! The Joy!" Some sources say that Clark was wrong about more than just the spelling of the word ocean—they say that what he saw that day wasn't the Pacific Ocean proper, but a bay into which the Columbia River emptied. By the middle of November, despite some very bad weather, the Corps of Discovery did reach the mouth of the Columbia and the Pacific itself. However, the dates given for this end-point of the journey range from November 15 to November 20, 1805. Why a range of dates for a singular event instead of just one firm date? It probably depends on what historians consider the words “reached the ocean” to mean. Lewis and Clark kept a dated journal, but historians may argue about what bit of water they were describing in a particular entry—the river, the estuary, the bay, or the ocean?

Commemorate the day!


There are Lewis-and-Clark kids' activities available online, including interactive games and coloring pages. This is a game of exploration and discovery. If you should want to dip into the journals written by Lewis and Clark, they're available online, too!