August 1 is the birthday of one of my favorite Americans.  William Clark was born on this date in the year 1770.  He is best known as the second captain in command of the Corps of Discovery.  With his co-captain Meriwether Lewis and 26 men of lesser rank, Clark was a central character in one of the great adventures of the American frontier, the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Clark’s renown has been somewhat eclipsed by the fame of Meriwether Lewis.  Although he was four years older than Lewis, Clark was the junior officer, personally selected by Lewis to be co-captain.  The two men could not have been a better match.  Each man’s skills complimented the other’s perfectly, and there is not a single hint that the two ever quarreled during the entire three year expedition.  Lewis was the more introspective of the two, and his journals provide an engaging, and sometimes even poetic account of the expedition.  Clark also kept a journal, and although his writings do not reach the same level of literary artistry as Lewis’s, it would be a mistake to write them off as strictly utilitarian.  Clark displays a keen sense of observation, and the empathy he feels toward Lewis and the other explorers shines throughout.  Consider what he wrote as one of the members of the corps, Sergeant Charles Floyd, contracted appendicitis and quickly died, the only fatality of the entire voyage.  Here is Clark’s journal entry of August 20, 1804, complete with the spelling and syntax eccentricities of an early 19^th century frontiersman:

Serjeant Floyd as bad as he can be  no pulse & nothing will Stay a moment on his Stomach or bowels – Passed two Islands on the S.S. (south side) and at the first Bluff on the S.S. Serj. Floyd Died with a great deel of Composure, before his death he Said to me, “I am going away I want you to write me a letter” – We buried him on the top of the bluff ½ Miles below a Small river to which we Gave his name, he was buried with the Honors of War much lamented … This Man at all times gave us proofs of his firmness and Deturmined resolution to doe Service to his Countrey and honor to himself  after paying all the honor to our Decesed brother we Camped in the mouth of floyds river about 30 yards wide, a butifull evening.

Other than serving as co-captain of the expedition, Clark’s primary responsibility was to be the chief surveyor and cartographer of the lands being explored.  Although Lewis was the party’s main scientist, principally as a naturalist and astronomer, many new species hitherto unknown to European-Americans were nevertheless discovered by Clark.  In fact, several common species of plants and animals are named after him, including cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki), Clark’s Grebe (Aechmophorus clarkii), and Clark’s Nutcracker (a large bird found in the Northwestern United States).

As a cartographer, however, Clark’s accomplishment was truly amazing.  Look at the map below, and compare it to a modern map of the same region.  The Olympic Peninsula of present day Washington state is in the upper left corner, St. Louis is at the bottom right.  Clark’s calculation of the distance the corps traveled is only off by approximately 40 miles.  The level of detail is astonishing when one considers that he drew this map by hand, based on estimations of distance and direction traveled.

Clark is the first diarist to mention the presence of Sacagawea during the expedition.  In November, 1804, a French fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau and his two Native American wives met the corps along the Middle Missouri River, where he offered his services as an interpreter.  One condition of this offer was that he be allowed to bring along his second wife, the pregnant Sacagawea.  Here is Clark’s diary entry of November 4, 1804:

A french man by Name Chabonah, who speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars were Snake Indians, we engau him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpet the Snake language.

Although Clark is best known for his accomplishments during the three year Corps of Discovery expedition, he was quite accomplished afterwards, too.  His good friend Meriwether Lewis was not so fortunate.  Lewis experienced extreme bouts of depression, and was never able to adjust to settled life following their return home.  In 1809, Lewis committed suicide while traveling the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.  Clark knew of Lewis’s mental turmoil, and on hearing of his death wrote, “I fear, O! I fear the weight of his mind has overcome him.”

Clark survived his good friend by 30 years.  President Jefferson named Clark the agent for Indian Affairs in the Louisiana Territory.  Later on, he was appointed governor of the Missouri Territory.  After Missouri became a state, President Monroe appointed him to the newly created position of Superintendant of Indian Affairs, a position he held until his death in 1838.  In that role, he was a conscientious advocate for Indian rights, despite rising Jacksonian pressure for aggressive settlement in Indian lands.  His advocacy for Native American rights is recognized even today.  A few years ago, leaders of the Osage Nation and the Lehmi band of the Shoshone went to Clark’s gravesite to pay their respects during a ceremony marking the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

One aspect of Clark’s life is particularly touching.  Once the Lewis and Clark expedition came to an end, the interpreter Charbonneau chose to return with his wife, Sacagawea, to the life of a trapper in the wilderness of the Northern Plains.  It would be no life for the small child Sacagawea had given birth to a year and a half earlier.  From Clark’s diary entry of August 17, 1806:

I offered to take his (Charbonneau’s) little Son a butifull promissing Child who is 19 months old to which they both himself & wife wer willing provided the Child had been weened.  they observed that in one year the boy would be Sufficiently old to leave his mother & he would then take him to me if I would be so freindly as to raise the Child for him in Such a manner as I thought proper, to which I agreed &c.

Clark fulfilled his promise to Charbonneau and Sacagawea, seeing to the boy’s education and upbringing.  The child, named Jean Baptiste, grew to become a fur trader and noted guide.  He accompanied a German naturalist on a highly regarded scientific expedition through the West, and then joined him for a time back in Germany.  He returned to America and became the alcalde of San Luis Rey Mission in California, and later joined the Gold Rush in the Sacramento Valley.  Jean Baptiste died in 1866 in Oregon, enroute to another gold discovery in the Northwest.

Sacagawea died from a fever in 1811, in what is now South Dakota.  Charbonneau remained there, and continued to serve as an interpreter for Americans on the Western frontier.  But under William Clark’s tutelage, their son became an accomplished man in his own right, carrying on the legacy of his American guardian on the Great American Frontier.

Happy birthday William Clark, and thank you for a life well lived.

Meriwether Lewis’s birthday is just a few weeks after William Clark’s, on August 18.  You can read the tribute I wrote last year for Lewis’s birthday  here.