Holidays on the Trail

Few holidays broke the daily or seasonal rhythms of life in the young United States, and there was a notable lack of consistency even among the few that were observed.^[1]At least one thing in the United States remains unchanged after more than 200 years: We still have no national holidays, and neither Congress nor the president is empowered to declare any. They may … Continue reading Thanksgiving was considered a New England feast-day; elsewhere it was ignored. Independence Day, first observed in Massachusetts in 1781, remained primarily a Northern holiday for many years.

New Year’s was a social festival, with exchanges of friendly visits; the stroke of midnight was allowed to pass without notice. “Auld Lang Syne” was just a sentimental buddy song that could suitably follow any toast on any occasion, and besides, it probably was sung to a different tune than we use today. Visiting among neighbors, sometimes quite distant, was a cherished tradition throughout the holiday period. It was known, in the “call-verse” to a popular frontier fiddle tune, as “Breakin’ Up Christmas”, which meant spending not a few hours but a few days with any number of distant family and friends.

In the first few decades of the 1800s, throughout the North, Christmas was just another ordinary day; it didn’t become an official holiday in the US until 1870. Meanwhile, most southerners observed it with fireworks, hunting, dancing, food, and drink. However, on the western frontier—in Kentucky, for instance—Christmas was an occasion to indulge in a few extra rations and to recall the pleasures of lives and times left behind, beyond the Appalachians. Easter was even less significant in the puritanical early American church. Not until after the Civil War, during which violent death had touched nearly every family, did Easter become as significant as Christmas.

Everywhere, birthdays generally passed without notice, except in gentlemen’s homes. The two captains observed theirs, but there’s no hint in the journals that anyone else’s were counted.

In a compromise with its multicultural makeup, the Corps of Discovery celebrated just three special days—Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Independence Day—and each must have been observed with a jovial mixture of traditions.

Camp Dubois, 1803

The men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition observed their first Christmas together in 1803, in their hastily built camp at the Dubois (Wood) River, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, across from the mouth of the Missouri. They had arrived there on 12 December 1803, and the next day began building their “huts,” which were roofed by the 24th, although Clark’s wasn’t finished until the 30th. Captain Lewis was in St. Louis.

It was a routine “frolick” typical of most holidays back then. Clark was awakened by the traditional daybreak volley of gunfire, to find that some of the party had already gotten drunk, and two had fought:

The men frolicked and hunted all day,” he wrote. “Several Turkey Killed. Shields returned with a cheese & 4 lb butter. Three Indians Come to day to take Christmas with us, I gave them a bottle of whiskey . . . .

New Year’s Day was about the same, except that “Several men Come from the Countrey to See us & Shoot with the men. . . . I put up a Dollar to be Shot for, the two best Shots to win . . . . The Countrey people won the dollar.”

Fort Mandan, 1804

On Christmas Eve, 1804, while the men put the finishing touches on Fort Mandan, “Flour, dried apples, pepper and other articles were distributed in the different messes to enable them to celebrate Christmas in a proper and social manner.”

Snow fell on Christmas morning. The temperature was 15 degrees above zero Fahrenheit at sunrise, and topped out just five degrees higher in the late afternoon. At daybreak the men, “merrily Disposed,” wakened the captains with “salutes” of gunfire. “I gave them all a little Taffia [rum mixed with water],” wrote Clark, “and permited 3 Cannon fired, at raising Our flag. Some men went out to hunt & the Others to Dancing.”

Sergeant Ordway added,

we had the Best to eat that could be had, & continued firing dancing & frolicking dureing the whole day . . . . We enjoyed a merry cristmas dureing the day & evening untill nine oClock—all in peace & quietness.

The weather warmed up considerably by 1 January 1805, when the men welcomed the New Year with several rounds of gunfire and a couple of glasses of “good old whiskey.” At midday half of the Corps traipsed off to one of the Mandan Indian villages, carrying “a fiddle & a Tambereen [tambourine]^[2]The “Tambereen,” or tambourine, was an ancient and universal percussion instrument (the “timbrel” or “tof” of the Old Testament) whose popularity was revived … Continue reading & a Sounden horn [sounding horn].” After several rounds of celebratory gunfire they commenced dancing. “A frenchman danced on his head,”^[3]Undoubtedly similar to a spectacular, individualistic, acrobatic style of dancing called breakdancing, which arose in the Bronx during the 1970s. Ordway reported, “and all danced round him for a Short time then went in to a lodge & danced a while, which pleased them verry much.” Clark ordered York, his black “Servent” (read, slave), to dance, which “Some what astonished them, that So large a man Should be active.”

“So we danced in different lodges untill late in the afternoon,” wrote Ordway.

They were “breakin’ up Christmas!”

Fort Clatsop, 1805

See Holidays at Fort Clatsop.

Christmas Songs

Even if we had no clues in the journals to tell us that the men occasionally sang popular songs of their time, we would suspect it because in those days, before vicarious participation in athletics became a measure of maleness, singing was a “guy thing” both in Europe and America. But musical activities are mentioned more than thirty times in the journals, and singing is specifically cited a number of times.

So what songs might they have sung at the conclusion of that traditional holiday ceremony, following the “Selute” and the “Shoute”?

It’s easy to list some of the songs the men could not have sung because they had not yet been written. Those would include “Silent Night” (1818); “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1874); “Angels we have heard on high” (1855); “Away in a manger” (1855); and “What child is this?” (1871), though the tune was popular in 1803.

A few that the men might have sung, because they were more or less well known around 1800, include: “O come, all ye faithful,” but perhaps in 3/4 time; “The first Nowell” or “God rest you merry, gentlemen”; “Away in a manger”; “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”; or “All hail the power of Jesus’ name.”

As every American knows, Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. Four days later the people of Philadelphia celebrated the event with a parade, a bonfire, and volleys of gunfire. “The bells rang all day and almost all night,” wrote John Adams.

Philadelphia, 1803

Philadelphians observed the first anniversary similarly, with the addition of band music, fireworks, flags, a banquet, and a naval display. Adams reported that after sundown all the city’s residents lighted candles in their windows. “I think it was the most splendid illumination I ever saw; a few surly houses were dark, but the lights were very universal.” The darkened windows, presumably of Royalist sympathizers, were the targets of rock-throwers. (The First Amendment was still fourteen years in the future.) By 4 July 1788, with ten states having ratified the Declaration, annual celebrations became general among Americans everywhere.

The National Intelligencer confirmed the rumor. “The executive have received official information that a Treaty was signed on the 30th of April, between the ministers Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of the United States and the Minister plenipotentiary of the French government, by which the United States have obtained the full right to and sovereignty over New Orleans, and the whole of Louisiana, as Spain possessed the same.” That momentous disclosure gave the celebration a special focus in Washington, D.C. On the fifth Meriwether Lewis set out for Pittsburgh, hoping to start down the Ohio River later that month.

Atchison, Kansas, 1804

4 July 1804: The expedition, having been underway for 52 days, camped near today’s Atchison, Kansas. Sergeant Patrick Gass recorded:

We fired a swivel at sunrise in honour of the day, and continued our voyage. . . . After dinner we renewed our voyage, and passed a creek on the north side, which we called Independence, encamped . . . saluted the departing day with another gun.

Falls of the Missouri, 1805

4 July 1805: The arduous portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri finally done, Lewis wrote:

. . . we gave the men a drink of sperits, it being the last of our stock, and some of them appeared a little sensible of it’s effects. The fiddle was plyed and they danced very merrily untill 9 in the evening when a heavy shower of rain put an end to that part of the amusement tho they continued their mirth with songs and festive jokes and were extreemly merry untill late at night. We had a very comfortable dinner of bacon, beans, suit dumplings^[4]See Lewis’s Suet Dumplings. & buffaloe beaf &c. In short we had no just cause to covet the sumptuous feasts of our countrymen on this day.

Travelers’ Rest, 1806

William Clark, en route from Travelers’ Rest to Camp Fortunate, camped on the upper Bitterroot River.

This being the day of the decleration of Independence of the United States and a Day commonly Scelebrated by my Country I had every disposition to Selebrate this day and therefore halted early and partook of a Sumptious Dinner of a fat Saddle of Venison and Mush of Cows [roots].

Meriwether Lewis, headed toward the Great Falls of the Missouri, bade farewell to his Nez Perce guides and camped on the lower Blackfoot River. He didn’t mention Independence Day in his journal, but recorded an evening which itself was worth a celebration—”fine, air pleasent, and no mosquetoes.”