A marker erected by the Great Northern Railway for Camp Disappointment which is 4 miles to the north.
The 1806 Trip
Death, disappointment & reunion
by Phil Scriver
When Clark departed Traveler’s Rest on July 3, 1806 he turned south down the Bitterroot Valley. Lewis left at the same time heading east through the Hell Gate to the “road to the buffalo.” The Hell Gate was a narrow canyon that must be used by anyone going east through the mountains to the prairies of central Montana. The Blackfeet frequently ambushed other groups of Indians coming through this canyon to prevent them from getting to the hunting grounds on the plains that the Blackfeet claimed as their land.
Lewis’ route took him along what would later become the Mullan Road that ran between Fort Benton on the Missouri and Walla Walla on the Columbia. Today it is Broadway Street in Missoula, Montana. The Nez Perces guides assured Lewis the road he sought was close and would be easily found. The guides were very eager to leave since they were in the territory where their enemies often would wait in ambush. Before leaving, the guides told Lewis that the road would fork near the continental divide and that he should take the left fork. Either route would take him to the great falls of the Missouri, but the left fork was easier traveling. Lewis sent out hunters to get a good supply of meat to repay the guides for their work.
The route Lewis took is generally the route of US Highway 200 from Missoula to Lincoln. On July 6 the party camped on Beaver Creek about two miles west of Lincoln. From that camp he headed northeast on the left fork of the trail the Nez Perces had talked about. This route took Lewis over the continental divide at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the Sun River at the mouth of Elk Creek just east of present day Augusta. Part of the route followed the ages-old Old North Trail that lies along the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It had been used for centuries by Indians traveling north to Canada or south into the states of Colorado or Utah. Traces of the Old North Trail are still visible in the area today. From there they followed the Sun River to its confluence with the Missouri near the great falls. On July 11 they camped across the river from their Upper Portage Camp of the year before.
Had Lewis taken the right fork at Lincoln instead of the left, he would have continued on the route of Highway 200 over Rogers Pass and straight to the great falls. This route would have been more direct but it also crosses a long stretch where there is no water and rougher terrain to travel over.
Lewis was back in familiar country and eager to explore the upper Marias River which he hoped would go far enough north to give the United States access to the rich fur trade on the Saskatchewan River. The group made two bullboats to cross the river. One of them was the traditional boat that used a single buffalo hide. The second used two hides and was of Lewis’ own design.
The next morning they found trouble had visited the camp. They awoke to find their horses were all gone. Eventually ten of the seventeen horses were found; they had simply scattered across the prairie during the night. Lewis was determined to get them all back, although he feared Indians had taken them. Two of the three men sent out to find the missing horses returned that night without any success. The third man, Drewyer, continued his search for three days until he verified the Indians had the missing horses. The horses had wandered so far during the night Indians who had been passing through simply claimed them, probably unaware that Lewis’ party was in the area.
The men that were not looking for missing horses busied themselves with moving the camp across the river to the Upper Portage Camp of 1805. There they opened the cache they had made. To Lewis’ great dismay water had seeped into the cache ruining much of the contents. All of the plant specimen he had collected were ruined as were most of the medicines and some bearskins. However the “carriage wheels” for the carts used on the portage were okay and would be useable again. Lewis noted “the iron frame of the boat had not suffered materially.” This is the last mention of that boat and has lead to a great deal of speculation about what may have happened to the iron frame – did they leave it behind or take it with them.
Lewis sent Hugh McNeal to the Lower Portage Camp to see how the items cached there, including the white pirogue, had fared. Near the Willow Run camp he surprised a grizzly bear. In the fracas that followed, McNeal was thrown from his horse then, using the only means of defense possible, whacked the bear across the head with his musket breaking the stock off it. The blow stunned the bear giving McNeal time to scramble up a tree where he eventually out-waited the bear. Late in the evening the bear ambled off allowing McNeal to climb down, catch up his horse and make tracks for camp.
As if this wasn’t enough activity for one day, July 15th is one of those days that historian will long remember, but for a much different reason. As Lewis wrote his journal entries for the day he was lamenting on how troublesome the mosquitoes were in the area. He remarked, “…my dog even howls with the torture he experiences from them.” These were the last words recorded by any of the journal keepers about Seaman although the journey home was to last for two months. The dog’s fate remains a question and a point of discussion that will probably never be settled. We don’t know if Seaman made the trip to Camp Disappointment with Lewis or if he remained behind with the group that waited for Ordway to reach the falls.
July 16, 1806 was another interesting day for Lewis and Clark historians. That morning Lewis split his party into two groups. A group of six was to wait for Sgt Ordway’s group, a part of Clark’s party, which was bringing six canoes downriver from Camp Fortunate where they had been cached the fall before. Lewis and three others set out down the Missouri. When they reached the Handsome Falls Lewis stopped “and took a hasty sketch of these falls.” From there they continued to the great falls where they camped for the night. The next morning Lewis “made a drawing of the falls” then they departed, heading north towards the upper part of the Marias River. These drawings have never been found.
When Captain Lewis, accompanied by George Drewyer, Joseph Fields and Reuben Fields, set off north from the great falls of the Missouri on July 17, 1806 he started on a journey that would become one of the best-known adventures of the entire expedition. They headed for the upper Marias where Lewis had been in 1805 when trying to determine which river was the right river to follow. This time they were traveling overland by horse. Two days’ travel got them to their objective. They reached the Marias some six miles upriver from Lewis’ camp of June 5, 1805. From that point the group turned to the west following the Marias to the mouth of Cut Bank Creek (Lewis called it the north fork of the Marias) then followed that river.
On July 22 Lewis surveyed the country for many miles. He could see where the river he was following flowed into the mountains. As he recorded the time in his journals, “we arrived at a clump of large cottonwood trees in a beautiful and extensive bottom of the river about ten miles below the foot of the Rocky Mountains where this river enters them; as I could see very distinctly where the river entered the mountains and the bearing of this point being south of west I thought it unnecessary to proceed further.”
The group stayed at this camp Lewis called Camp Disappointment until the morning of July 26. Bad weather prevented Lewis from taking all the reading he had wanted. That, combined with lack of game and the discovery of a recently abandoned Indian camp made the name very appropriate. It was also here that Lewis reported his chronometer chose to stop working. Lewis set his route to the southeast and soon reached the Two Medicine River just below the mouth of Badger Creek. Although the party was disappointed and keeping a close watch for Indians Lewis noted that this spot was the first place he saw all three types of cottonwood trees growing. Most people would not have been able to make this distinction even with the pressure of conflict.
After leaving the Two Medicine Lewis climbed to the top of the hills to survey the area. He saw what he had hoped he would avoid – Indians. They had not seen him; apparently they were intently watching something on the river below – Drewyer. The rest of that day and early the next were taken up with the “incident on the Two Medicine” which was the only time during the expedition that conflict between whites and Indians resulted in death.
When the Indians were out of sight after the run-in Lewis and his party hastily packed up and fled the area. The Indians had told Lewis a large band of their tribe was heading for the mouth of the Marias and would be there in a few days. This information only added to Lewis’ need to hurry; he had to get to the Marias to warn the rest of his men that were coming down the Missouri from the great falls.
Lewis set his course to the southeast pushing the horses as fast as possible. They traveled 63 miles before they dared to stop to rest and eat. After resting an hour and a half, they pushed hard for another 17 miles before resting for two hours. They traveled another 20 miles by moonlight then stopped for the night. They had gone 100 miles. The next morning the men suggested directing their route to the grog springs, but Lewis said that would add another day to their travel. He continued on toward the mouth of the Marias. After twelve miles they struck the Missouri at current day Fort Benton several miles upriver of their goal. They had heard rifle shots that turned out to be Sgt Ordway and his party coming downriver from the great falls in the white pirogue and five dugout canoes. Lewis and his party joined Sgt Ordway in the boats and soon were at the mouth of the Marias. No Indians were to be found.
They stopped at the Marias long enough to recover their baggage they had cached there the summer before. All was in good order except for some furs and some parched cornmeal. They also could not find three of Drewyer’s beaver traps that had been cached by separately. Upon examining the red pirogue that had been stored there, they found it badly rotted beyond use. Lewis noted they “took the nails and other ironworks about her which might be of service to us.” With this done the group returned to the boats, going fifteen miles farther downriver before daring to stop for the night.
As they were leaving the Marias rain started falling. That was July 28; the rain continued until the afternoon of August 2. Since the group had no tents it was impossible to get out of the rain until the evening of July 31st when they took refuge in some abandoned Indian stick lodges. With no hope of getting things dried out, the next day the group pushed on downriver again taking shelter in abandoned Indian stick lodges for the night. Lewis noted that the river was running very high and the dry creeks they saw the year before were now running full of water.
Lewis then turned his attention away from the Blackfeet, concentrating instead on getting his group downriver and reuniting with Clark. The Corps of Discovery landed at St. Louis, Missouri on September 23, 1806 to a hearty welcome from its inhabitants.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition had split into as many as eleven groups as they crossed Montana in 1806. By the time Lewis reached the mouth of the Marias the Expedition was in three groups. Lewis had nineteen men with him, Clark had eight people with him while Sgt Pryor and three others were paddling hastily down the Yellowstone in bullboats trying to catch up to Clark.
Death, disappointment & reunion
by Phil Scriver
When Clark departed Traveler’s Rest on July 3, 1806 he turned south down the Bitterroot Valley. Lewis left at the same time heading east through the Hell Gate to the “road to the buffalo.” The Hell Gate was a narrow canyon that must be used by anyone going east through the mountains to the prairies of central Montana. The Blackfeet frequently ambushed other groups of Indians coming through this canyon to prevent them from getting to the hunting grounds on the plains that the Blackfeet claimed as their land.
Lewis’ route took him along what would later become the Mullan Road that ran between Fort Benton on the Missouri and Walla Walla on the Columbia. Today it is Broadway Street in Missoula, Montana. The Nez Perces guides assured Lewis the road he sought was close and would be easily found. The guides were very eager to leave since they were in the territory where their enemies often would wait in ambush. Before leaving, the guides told Lewis that the road would fork near the continental divide and that he should take the left fork. Either route would take him to the great falls of the Missouri, but the left fork was easier traveling. Lewis sent out hunters to get a good supply of meat to repay the guides for their work.
The route Lewis took is generally the route of US Highway 200 from Missoula to Lincoln. On July 6 the party camped on Beaver Creek about two miles west of Lincoln. From that camp he headed northeast on the left fork of the trail the Nez Perces had talked about. This route took Lewis over the continental divide at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the Sun River at the mouth of Elk Creek just east of present day Augusta. Part of the route followed the ages-old Old North Trail that lies along the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It had been used for centuries by Indians traveling north to Canada or south into the states of Colorado or Utah. Traces of the Old North Trail are still visible in the area today. From there they followed the Sun River to its confluence with the Missouri near the great falls. On July 11 they camped across the river from their Upper Portage Camp of the year before.
Had Lewis taken the right fork at Lincoln instead of the left, he would have continued on the route of Highway 200 over Rogers Pass and straight to the great falls. This route would have been more direct but it also crosses a long stretch where there is no water and rougher terrain to travel over.
Lewis was back in familiar country and eager to explore the upper Marias River which he hoped would go far enough north to give the United States access to the rich fur trade on the Saskatchewan River. The group made two bullboats to cross the river. One of them was the traditional boat that used a single buffalo hide. The second used two hides and was of Lewis’ own design.
The next morning they found trouble had visited the camp. They awoke to find their horses were all gone. Eventually ten of the seventeen horses were found; they had simply scattered across the prairie during the night. Lewis was determined to get them all back, although he feared Indians had taken them. Two of the three men sent out to find the missing horses returned that night without any success. The third man, Drewyer, continued his search for three days until he verified the Indians had the missing horses. The horses had wandered so far during the night Indians who had been passing through simply claimed them, probably unaware that Lewis’ party was in the area.
The men that were not looking for missing horses busied themselves with moving the camp across the river to the Upper Portage Camp of 1805. There they opened the cache they had made. To Lewis’ great dismay water had seeped into the cache ruining much of the contents. All of the plant specimen he had collected were ruined as were most of the medicines and some bearskins. However the “carriage wheels” for the carts used on the portage were okay and would be useable again. Lewis noted “the iron frame of the boat had not suffered materially.” This is the last mention of that boat and has lead to a great deal of speculation about what may have happened to the iron frame – did they leave it behind or take it with them.
Lewis sent Hugh McNeal to the Lower Portage Camp to see how the items cached there, including the white pirogue, had fared. Near the Willow Run camp he surprised a grizzly bear. In the fracas that followed, McNeal was thrown from his horse then, using the only means of defense possible, whacked the bear across the head with his musket breaking the stock off it. The blow stunned the bear giving McNeal time to scramble up a tree where he eventually out-waited the bear. Late in the evening the bear ambled off allowing McNeal to climb down, catch up his horse and make tracks for camp.
As if this wasn’t enough activity for one day, July 15th is one of those days that historian will long remember, but for a much different reason. As Lewis wrote his journal entries for the day he was lamenting on how troublesome the mosquitoes were in the area. He remarked, “…my dog even howls with the torture he experiences from them.” These were the last words recorded by any of the journal keepers about Seaman although the journey home was to last for two months. The dog’s fate remains a question and a point of discussion that will probably never be settled. We don’t know if Seaman made the trip to Camp Disappointment with Lewis or if he remained behind with the group that waited for Ordway to reach the falls.
July 16, 1806 was another interesting day for Lewis and Clark historians. That morning Lewis split his party into two groups. A group of six was to wait for Sgt Ordway’s group, a part of Clark’s party, which was bringing six canoes downriver from Camp Fortunate where they had been cached the fall before. Lewis and three others set out down the Missouri. When they reached the Handsome Falls Lewis stopped “and took a hasty sketch of these falls.” From there they continued to the great falls where they camped for the night. The next morning Lewis “made a drawing of the falls” then they departed, heading north towards the upper part of the Marias River. These drawings have never been found.
When Captain Lewis, accompanied by George Drewyer, Joseph Fields and Reuben Fields, set off north from the great falls of the Missouri on July 17, 1806 he started on a journey that would become one of the best-known adventures of the entire expedition. They headed for the upper Marias where Lewis had been in 1805 when trying to determine which river was the right river to follow. This time they were traveling overland by horse. Two days’ travel got them to their objective. They reached the Marias some six miles upriver from Lewis’ camp of June 5, 1805. From that point the group turned to the west following the Marias to the mouth of Cut Bank Creek (Lewis called it the north fork of the Marias) then followed that river.
On July 22 Lewis surveyed the country for many miles. He could see where the river he was following flowed into the mountains. As he recorded the time in his journals, “we arrived at a clump of large cottonwood trees in a beautiful and extensive bottom of the river about ten miles below the foot of the Rocky Mountains where this river enters them; as I could see very distinctly where the river entered the mountains and the bearing of this point being south of west I thought it unnecessary to proceed further.”
The group stayed at this camp Lewis called Camp Disappointment until the morning of July 26. Bad weather prevented Lewis from taking all the reading he had wanted. That, combined with lack of game and the discovery of a recently abandoned Indian camp made the name very appropriate. It was also here that Lewis reported his chronometer chose to stop working. Lewis set his route to the southeast and soon reached the Two Medicine River just below the mouth of Badger Creek. Although the party was disappointed and keeping a close watch for Indians Lewis noted that this spot was the first place he saw all three types of cottonwood trees growing. Most people would not have been able to make this distinction even with the pressure of conflict.
After leaving the Two Medicine Lewis climbed to the top of the hills to survey the area. He saw what he had hoped he would avoid – Indians. They had not seen him; apparently they were intently watching something on the river below – Drewyer. The rest of that day and early the next were taken up with the “incident on the Two Medicine” which was the only time during the expedition that conflict between whites and Indians resulted in death.
When the Indians were out of sight after the run-in Lewis and his party hastily packed up and fled the area. The Indians had told Lewis a large band of their tribe was heading for the mouth of the Marias and would be there in a few days. This information only added to Lewis’ need to hurry; he had to get to the Marias to warn the rest of his men that were coming down the Missouri from the great falls.
Lewis set his course to the southeast pushing the horses as fast as possible. They traveled 63 miles before they dared to stop to rest and eat. After resting an hour and a half, they pushed hard for another 17 miles before resting for two hours. They traveled another 20 miles by moonlight then stopped for the night. They had gone 100 miles. The next morning the men suggested directing their route to the grog springs, but Lewis said that would add another day to their travel. He continued on toward the mouth of the Marias. After twelve miles they struck the Missouri at current day Fort Benton several miles upriver of their goal. They had heard rifle shots that turned out to be Sgt Ordway and his party coming downriver from the great falls in the white pirogue and five dugout canoes. Lewis and his party joined Sgt Ordway in the boats and soon were at the mouth of the Marias. No Indians were to be found.
They stopped at the Marias long enough to recover their baggage they had cached there the summer before. All was in good order except for some furs and some parched cornmeal. They also could not find three of Drewyer’s beaver traps that had been cached by separately. Upon examining the red pirogue that had been stored there, they found it badly rotted beyond use. Lewis noted they “took the nails and other ironworks about her which might be of service to us.” With this done the group returned to the boats, going fifteen miles farther downriver before daring to stop for the night.
As they were leaving the Marias rain started falling. That was July 28; the rain continued until the afternoon of August 2. Since the group had no tents it was impossible to get out of the rain until the evening of July 31st when they took refuge in some abandoned Indian stick lodges. With no hope of getting things dried out, the next day the group pushed on downriver again taking shelter in abandoned Indian stick lodges for the night. Lewis noted that the river was running very high and the dry creeks they saw the year before were now running full of water.
Lewis then turned his attention away from the Blackfeet, concentrating instead on getting his group downriver and reuniting with Clark. The Corps of Discovery landed at St. Louis, Missouri on September 23, 1806 to a hearty welcome from its inhabitants.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition had split into as many as eleven groups as they crossed Montana in 1806. By the time Lewis reached the mouth of the Marias the Expedition was in three groups. Lewis had nineteen men with him, Clark had eight people with him while Sgt Pryor and three others were paddling hastily down the Yellowstone in bullboats trying to catch up to Clark.