FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FAMOUS PERSONALITIES FROM THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
Captain Meriwether Lewis
- Meriwether Lewis, of Virginia, was personal secretary to Thomas Jefferson when the president tapped him to lead the expedition at age 29. He shared Jefferson’s curiosity for the natural sciences and kept prolific and detailed journals of the expedition.
- Despite his courage and leadership, Lewis suffered from depression and alcoholism. The cause of his death remains a mystery today, but some say that he ended up committing suicide three years after the journey without having published his journals.
- Lewis’s mother, Lucy, taught her son a lot about plants and medicine. She was known for her knowledge of herbal medicines and wild plants and grew her own crop of herbs to treat ailments.
Captain William Clark
- William Clark, four years older than Lewis, agreed to his friend Lewis’s request to help lead the party. He was a skilled outdoorsman and a prolific diarist, although a worse speller than Lewis.
- Clark was the more even-tempered of the two leaders and was an excellent cartographer, or mapmaker.
Sacagawea
- Sacagawea joined the expedition in the winter of 1804–05 when Lewis and Clark hired her French-Canadian husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter. She was 16 and pregnant with Charbonneau’s son.
- The only woman on the expedition, Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who had been kidnapped by Hidatsa warriors when she was 12. She was either bought or won from the Hidatsa by Charbonneau.
- In an age when almost nothing was known about a healthy, well-balanced diet, Sacagawea dug up vegetable roots and picked fruit for the hungry explorers that not only helped with digestion but also helped stave off diseases such as scurvy.
- No one knows what she looked like and none of her words or belongings remain, yet she has more statues in her honor—at least 23—than any other woman in America. There also are mountains, lakes and rivers named for her.
- Some experts say Sacagawea’s most critical service came when she successfully negotiated the sale of horses from the Shoshones that allowed the expedition to cross the Rocky Mountains before winter. During these negotiations, she recognized the Shoshone chief as her long-lost brother.
York
- York, Clark’s slave, performed all the duties of an enlisted soldier and was the first black man to cross the continent north of Mexico.
- After the expedition, Clark claimed to have given York his freedom, but many historians dispute this.
- York was of endless fascination to the Native Americans who had never seen someone with black skin.
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau
- The son of Sacagawea and Charbonneau, he was delivered by Lewis in February 1805 and survived the journey on his mother’s back. He later became a trapper and guide.
Sergeant Charles Floyd
- Despite battling raging snowstorms, hungry grizzlies and starvation over a two-year period, only one man died. Sergeant Charles Floyd, 22, died by what scientists believe was appendicitis.
George Drouillard
- Many experts consider George Drouillard the third-most-important person on the expedition because he was the best hunter and provided the most food. Half Shawnee Indian, Drouillard also spoke many Indian languages and was an expert in Indian sign language. Lewis rewarded him by paying him five times more than the enlisted men.
Seaman
- Seaman, a Newfoundland dog, was Lewis’s constant companion. He hunted squirrels, which the expedition fried and ate.
- The dog was such a favorite that at one point, three Native Americans stole him, and Lewis threatened to shoot them. They gave the dog back.
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Many of the Museum’s educational programs and exhibits are made possible in part by generous funding from the citizens of the seven-county metro area through the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).
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