Lewis employs horses, sails, and oxen to pass over several gravel bars. He tries sailing, but in the high wind, the sprit sail breaks. They pass Steubenville, Ohio but only make ten miles for the day.
Wellsburg, West Virginia
© 2021 by Robert Heacock. Used by permission.
At age sixty, Patrick Gass, former sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, settled in Wellsburg, married twenty-year old Maria Hamilton, and raised a family. He died there at the age of ninety-nine—the oldest surviving member of the expedition.
Dragging with Horses
[s]truck on a riffle which we got over with some difficulty and in the distance of two miles and a half passed 4 others three of which we were obliged to drag over with horses; the man charged me the exorbitant price of two dollars for his trouble.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Broken Sprit Sail
being 6 M. from encam[pment] hoisted our fore sale found great relief from it we run two miles in a few minutes when the wind becoming so strong we were obliged to hall it in lest it should carry away the mast, but the wind abating in some measure we again spread it; a sudan squal broke the sprete [sprit] and had very nearly carried away the mast, after which we firled an[d] secured it tho’ the wind was so strong as to carry us pretty good speed by means of the arning and firled sails.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Frederick William Augustus, Baron Von Steuben
by Charles Willson Peale, 1781–82
Oil on canvas, 23 x 20 inches. Courtesy Independence National Historic Park.
Steubenville
got on pretty well to Steuwbenville, which we past at 2 Oc. . . . struck on a riffle about two miles below the town hoisted our mainsail to assist in driving us over the riffle the wind blew so heard as to break the spreat of it, and now having no assistance but by manual exertion and my men woarn down by perpetual lifting I was obliged again to have recourse to my usual resort and sent out in serch of horses or oxen—
—Meriwether Lewis
A Thriving Place
Stewbenville a small town situated on the Ohio in the state of Ohio about six miles above Charlestown in Virginia and 24 above Wheeling—is small well built thriving place has several respectable families residing in it, five years since it was a wilderness—
—Meriwether Lewis
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
This page was funded in part by the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, U.S. National Park Service.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
- Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
- Montana Committee for the Humanities
- Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee
- The Capital Gallery (Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)
- Yellowstone Public Radio
Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).