- 1752
| Nov 19 | George Rogers Clark American frontiersman, field commander: founded Louisville KY; brother of General William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is born. | Ref: 4 |
- 1762
| Nov 03 | Spain acquires Louisiana. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 03 | France cedes to Spain all lands west of the MS--the territory known as Upper Louisiana, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1770
| Aug 01 | Lewis & Clark: William Clark, Charlottsville VA, 2nd lt of Lewis & Clark Expedition, is born. Ref. | |
- 1771
| Jun 12 | Patrick Gass Falling Springs PA, sgt of Lewis & Clark Expedition, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1774
| Aug 18 | Meriwether Lewis, American explorer who led the Corps of Discovery with William Clark, is born in Charlottsville VA. also Ref. | Ref: 2 |
- 1786
| Apr 06 | (date approximate) Sacagawea (also Sacajawea), American explorer, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1799
| Jul 24 | William Clark (of Lewis & Clark) is willed the slave York. | Ref: 5 |
- 1800
| Oct 01 | Spain cedes Louisiana to France in a secret treaty. The secret treaty of St. Ildefonso reverses 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau. | Ref: 70 |
- 1801
| Mar 06 | Lewis & Clark: Meriwether Lewis Lewis is asked by President Jefferson to be his secretary-aide. Ref. | |
- 1802
| Aug 31 | Captain Merriwether Lewis leaves Pittsburgh to meet up with Captain William Clark and begin their trek to the Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 20 | The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France. | Ref: 2 |
- 1803
| Jan 11 | Monroe & Livingston sail for Paris to buy New Orleans; they buy Louisiana. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | Lewis & Clark: In secret communication to Congress, Jefferson seeks authorization for expedition – first official exploration of unknown spaces undertaken by United States government. Appropriation of $2,500 requested. (Final cost will be $38,000.). | Ref: 65 |
| Apr 30 | Lewis & Clark: France draws up a treaty giving the Louisiana Territories to the United States for $15 million. The United States doubles in size. | Ref: 4 |
| May 02 | Lewis & Clark: The treaty between France and the United States transferring the Louisiana Purchase to the US for $15 million, is signed. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 19 | "If there is anything... which would induce you to participate with me in it's fatiegues, it's dangers and it's honors, believe me thre is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself." excerpt from a letter from Meriwether Lewis to William Clark. (Time, p 44, 7/08/2002) | |
| Jul 04 | Lewis & Clark: News of the Louisiana Purchase announced. For $15 million, Jefferson more than doubles the size of United States: 820,000 square miles for 3 cents an acre. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 05 | Lewis & Clark: Meriwether Lewis leaves Washington DC as President Jefferson's secretary to lead an expedition into the Lousiana Territory. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 14 | The treaty between France and the United States transferring the Louisiana Purchase to the US for $15 million, reaches Washington. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 31 | Lewis & Clark: The government-sponsored transcontinental expedition under the leadership of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark set off from Pittsburgh down the Ohio River for the winter and a training camp outside St. Louis. | |
| Oct 15 | William Clark joins the expedition at Fort Massac, KY. (Time, p 44, 7/08/2002) | |
| Oct 20 | The US Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 25 | The treaty between France and the United States transferring the Louisiana Purchase to the US for $15 million, is ratified by Congress. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 31 | Congress ratifies the purchase of the entire Louisiana area in North America, adding territory to the U.S. which will eventually become 13 more states. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 30 | Spain cedes her claims to Louisiana Territory to France. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | Lewis and Clark make winter camp at River Dubois, IL, outside St. Louis. (Time, p 44, 7/08/2002) | |
| Dec 20 | The Louisiana Purchase was completed as the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 30 | The United States takes possession of the Louisiana area from France at New Orleans with a simple ceremony, the simultaneous lowering and raising of the national flags. | Ref: 2 |
- 1804
| Mar 10 | Lewis & Clark: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark attend ceremonies in St. Louis formally transferring Louisiana Territory from France to United States. | Ref: 65 |
| Mar 26 | The Louisiana Purchase was divided into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana. | Ref: 70 |
| Apr 09 | Lewis & Clark: St Louis is officially transferred from Spain to France. Tomorrow, France will transfer St Louis to the United States. (The History Magazine, p.55, May/June, 2003) | |
| May 14 | Lewis & Clark: The Expedition sets off from Camp Dubois (on east bank of Mississippi, upstream from St. Louis) "under a jentle brease," Clark writes. (Lewis is in St. Louis and joins group a few days later.). | Ref: 65 |
| May 17 | Lewis & Clark: Lewis & Clark begin exploration of the Louisiana Purchase. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri. The good, the bad and the ugly of conquering the American West. | Ref: 2 |
| May 25 | Lewis & Clark: The Expedition passes La Charette, a cluster of seven dwellings less than 60 miles up the Missouri, but, as Floyd notes in his journal, "the last settlement of whites on this river." | Ref: 65 |
| Jun 26 | Lewis & Clark: The Lewis and Clark Expedition reaches the mouth of the KS River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 04 | Lewis & Clark: The Expedition marks first Fourth of July ever celebrated west of the Mississippi by firing keelboat's cannon, drinking extra ration of whiskey, and naming a creek (near what is now Atchinson, Kansas) Independence Creek. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 03 | Lewis & Clark: First official council between representatives of United States and western Indians occurs north of present-day Omaha, when the Corps of Discovery meets with small delegation of Oto and Missouri Indians. Captains establish routine for subsequent Indian councils: hand out peace medals, 15-star flags, and gifts; parade men and show off technology (magnets, compasses, telescopes, Lewis's air gun); give speech saying Indians have new "great father" far to the east and promising future of peace and prosperity if tribes don't make war on whites or other tribes. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 20 | Lewis & Clark: Near what is now Sioux City, Iowa, Sergeant Charles Floyd becomes the expedition's first casualty from what was probably a burst appendix. (Also becomes first United States soldier to die west of Mississippi.) Captains name hilltop where he is buried Floyd's Bluff and nearby stream Floyd's River. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 30 | Lewis & Clark: Expedition holds friendly council with Yankton Sioux (near what is now Yankton, South Dakota). According to Yankton oral tradition, when a baby is born, Lewis wraps him in a United States flag and declares him "an American." | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 07 | Lewis & Clark: Moving into the Great Plains, the expedition begins seeing animals unknown in the East: coyotes, antelope, mule deer, and others. On this particular day, all the men are employed drowning a prairie dog out of its hole for shipment back to Jefferson. In all, the captains would describe in their journals 178 plants and 122 animals that previously had not been recorded for science. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 25 | Lewis & Clark: Near what is now Pierre, South Dakota, the Teton Sioux (the Lakota) demand one of the boats as a toll for moving farther upriver. A fight nearly ensues, but is defused by the diplomacy of a chief named Black Buffalo. For three more anxious days, the expedition stays with the tribe. | Ref: 65 |
| Oct 24 | Lewis & Clark: North of what is now Bismarck, North Dakota, the Corps of Discovery reaches the earth-lodge villages of the Mandans and Hidatsas. Some 4,500 people live there – more than live in St. Louis or even Washington, D.C. at the time. The captains decide to build Fort Mandan across the river from the main village. | Ref: 65 |
| Nov 02 | Lewis and Clark make winter camp at Fort Mandan, ND. They will stay there until April 6th, 1805. (Time, p 44, 7/08/2002) | |
| Nov 04 | Lewis & Clark: The captains hire Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian fur trader living among the Hidatsas, as an interpreter. His young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, had been captured by the Hidatsas several years earlier and then sold to Charbonneau (along with another Shoshone girl). Having been told that the Shoshones live at the headwaters of the Missouri and have many horses, the captains believe the two will be helpful when the expedition reaches the mountains. | Ref: 65 |
| Dec 17 | Lewis & Clark: Clark notes a temperature of 45º below zero – "colder," John Ordway adds, "than I ever knew it be in the States." A week later, on Christmas Eve, Fort Mandan was considered complete and the expedition had moved in for the winter. | Ref: 65 |
- 1805
| Feb 11 | Lewis & Clark: Sacagawea gives birth to a baby boy, Jean Baptiste. Lewis assists in speeding the delivery by giving her a potion made by crushing the rings of a rattlesnake's rattle into powder. | Ref: 65 |
| Apr 07 | Lewis & Clark: Lewis and Clark dispatch the big keelboat and roughly a dozen men back downriver, along with maps, reports, Indian artifacts, and boxes of scientific specimens for Jefferson (Indian corn, animal skins and skeletons, mineral samples, and five live animals including the prairie dog). The same day, the "permanent party" heads west, traveling in the two pirogues and six smaller dugout canoes. The expedition totals 33 now, including Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and her baby boy. "We were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden," Lewis wrote, adding that "I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life." | Ref: 65 |
| Apr 29 | Lewis & Clark: Proceeding into what is now Montana – farther west than any white men had ever gone on the Missouri – they are astounded by the wildlife: herds of buffalo numbering up to 10,000, and other game "so plenty and tame," John Ordway writes, "that some of the party clubbed them out of their way." (The men are eating 9 pounds of buffalo meat a day.) Also on this day, past the mouth of the Yellowstone River, Lewis and another hunter kill an enormous bear – a grizzly, never before described for science. At first, Lewis believes that Indian accounts of the bears' ferocity were exaggerated, but in the days to come, as grizzly after grizzly chases the men across the Plains and prove nearly impossible to kill, he writes that the "curiosity of our party is pretty well satisfied with respect to this animal." | Ref: 65 |
| May 20 | Lewis & Clark: The captains name a river "Sah-ca-gah-we-a or bird woman's River, after our interpreter the Snake [Shoshone] woman." As they map new territory, the captains eventually give the names of every expedition member to some landmark. | Ref: 65 |
| May 26 | Meriwether Lewis sees the Rockies for the first time. (Time, p 44, 7/08/2002) | |
| May 29 | Lewis & Clark: William Clark comes across a stream he considers particularly clear and pretty, and names it the Judith River, in honor of a young girl back in Virginia he hopes will one day marry him. | Ref: 65 |
| May 31 | Lewis & Clark: The Corps of Discovery enters what are now called the White Cliffs of the Missouri – remarkable sandstone formations that the men compare to the ruins of an ancient city. (This section of the river is now protected by Congress and remains the most unspoiled section of the entire Lewis and Clark route.) "As we passed on," Lewis writes, "it seemed as if those scenes of visionary enchantment would never have an end." | Ref: 65 |
| Jun 02 | Lewis & Clark: The expedition comes to a stop at a fork in the river. All the men believe the northern fork is the true Missouri; Lewis and Clark think it's the south fork. After several days of scouting, the captains are still convinced they're right and name the other fork the Marias (after a cousin of Lewis in Virginia). The men still think otherwise but tell the captains "they were ready to follow us any where we thought proper to direct," according to Lewis. Based on information gleaned from the Hidatsas, they know that if they find a big waterfall, they're on the right track. | Ref: 65 |
| Jun 13 | Lewis & Clark: Scouting ahead of the rest of the expedition, Lewis comes across "the grandest sight I ever beheld" – the Great Falls of the Missouri, proof the captains had been correct. But then he discovers four more waterfalls immediately upriver. They will have to portage eighteen and a half miles to get around them all. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 04 | Lewis & Clark: The party celebrates its second Independence Day on the trail (as well as the completion of the portage) by dancing late into the night and drinking the last of their supply of whiskey. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 08 | Lewis & Clark: Sacagawea recognizes another landmark – Beaverhead Rock, north of present-day Dillon, Montana – and says they are nearing the river's headwaters and home of her people, the Shoshones. Desperate to find the Indians and their horses, Lewis decides to scout ahead with three men. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 11 | Lewis & Clark: Lewis comes across a single, mounted Indian – the first the expedition had seen since leaving Fort Mandan – and tries to signal his friendly intentions, but the Indian rides off. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 12 | Lewis & Clark: The shipment sent from Fort Mandan finally arrives in the East. Jefferson will plant the Indian corn in his Monticello garden, hang elk antlers in his foyer, and send the surviving animals – a magpie and the prairie dog – to a natural science museum located in Philadelphia's Independence Hall. Reading Lewis's confident letter, he would imagine the expedition having already reached the Pacific. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 17 | Lewis & Clark: Having discovered a village of Shoshones, Lewis tries to negotiate for the horses he now knows are all-important to cross the daunting mountains. On this day, Clark and the rest of the expedition arrive and Sacagawea is brought in to help translate. Remarkably, the Shoshone chief, Cameahwait, turns out to be her brother. The captains name the spot Camp Fortunate. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 18 | Lewis & Clark: Lewis's 31st birthday. Though he has just become the first American citizen to reach the Continental Divide and has concluded successful negotiations for horses, in his journal entry he turns introspective, writing that "I had as yet done but little, very little indeed." He vows "in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself." | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 31 | Lewis & Clark: With 29 horses, one mule, and a Shoshone guide called Old Toby, the expedition sets off overland. They head north, over a mountain pass and into the valley of a beautiful river, now called the Bitterroot. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 09 | Lewis & Clark: They camp south of present-day Missoula, Montana, at a spot the captains call Travelers Rest, preparing for the mountain crossing. Indians tell them that by following the Missouri to its source, they missed a shortcut from the Great Falls which could have brought them here in 4 days. Instead, it has taken them 53. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 11 | Lewis & Clark: The Corps of Discovery ascends into the Bitterroot Mountains, which Sergeant Patrick Gass calls "the most terrible mountains I ever beheld." Old Toby loses the trail in the steep and heavily wooded mountains. They run short of provisions and butcher a horse for food; snows begin to fall; worst of all, John Ordway writes on September 18th, "the mountains continue as far as our eyes could extend. They extend much further than we expected." Clark names a stream Hungry Creek to describe their condition. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 22 | Lewis & Clark: On the brink of starvation, the entire expedition staggers out of the Bitterroots near modern-day Weippe, Idaho. | Ref: 65 |
| Oct 07 | Lewis & Clark: Near what is now Orofino, Idaho, the expedition pushes its five new canoes into the Clearwater River, and for the first time since leaving St. Louis has a river's current at its back. | Ref: 65 |
| Oct 16 | Lewis & Clark: Having raced down the Clearwater, then the Snake rivers, they reach the Columbia. The river teems with salmon – Clark estimates 10,000 pounds of salmon drying in one village – but the men want meat to eat, so they buy dogs from the Indians. | Ref: 65 |
| Oct 18 | Lewis & Clark: Clark sees Mount Hood in the distance. Seen and named by a British sea captain in 1792, it is a fixed point on the expedition's map, proof they are at last approaching the ocean. Soon they pass through the raging falls of the Columbia and into the Gorge, emerging from the arid semi-deserts of eastern Washington and Oregon into the dense rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. | Ref: 65 |
| Nov 07 | Lewis & Clark: Thinking he sees the end of land in the distance, Clark writes his most famous journal entry: "Ocian in view! O! the joy." [His spelling.] But they're actually only at the eastern end of Gray's Bay, still 20 miles from sea. Fierce Pacific storms, rolling waters, and high winds pin them down for nearly three weeks, "the most disagreeable time I have experienced," according to Clark. Later, Clark estimates they have traveled 4,162 miles from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific. His estimate, based on dead reckoning, will turn out to be within 40 miles of the actual distance. | Ref: 65 |
| Nov 15 | Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their party reach the mouth of the Columbia River, completing their trek to the Pacific. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 24 | Lewis & Clark: To make the crucial decision of where to spend the winter, the captains decide to put the matter to a vote. Significantly, in addition to the others, Clark's slave, York, is allowed to vote – nearly 60 years before slaves in the U. S. would be emancipated and enfranchised. Sacagawea, the Indian woman, votes too – more than a century before either women or Indians are granted the full rights of citizenship. The majority decides to cross to the south side of the Columbia, near modern-day Astoria, Oregon, to build winter quarters. | Ref: 65 |
| Dec 25 | Lewis & Clark: An entire continent between them and home, the expedition celebrates Christmas in its new quarters, Fort Clatsop, named for a neighboring Indian tribe. The captains hand out handkerchiefs and the last of the expedition's tobacco supply as presents. | Ref: 65 |
- 1806
| Jan 01 | Lewis & Clark: In his journal entry, Lewis exhibits the homesickness that seems to afflict everyone during the rainy winter, during which there are only 12 days in which it doesn't rain. "Nothing worthy of notice" soon replaces "we proceeded on" as the most common phrase used by the diarists. | Ref: 65 |
| Jan 04 | Lewis & Clark: In the East, President Jefferson welcomes a delegation of Missouri, Oto, Arikara, and Yankton Sioux chiefs who had met Lewis and Clark more than a year earlier. Jefferson thanks them for helping the expedition and tells them of his hope "that we may all live together as one household." The chiefs respond with praise for the explorers, but doubts about whether Jefferson's other "white children" will keep his word. | Ref: 65 |
| Jan 08 | Lewis & Clark find skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | Lewis & Clark: Having previously run out of whiskey, the expedition now runs out of tobacco. Patrick Gass reports that the men use crab tree bark as a substitute. | Ref: 65 |
| Mar 23 | Lewis & Clark: Fort Clatsop is presented to the Clatsops, and the expedition sets off for home. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 03 | Lewis & Clark: After re-crossing the Bitterroots, the expedition splits into smaller units, in order to explore more of the Louisiana Territory. Clark takes a group down the Yellowstone River; Lewis heads across the shortcut to the Great Falls and then explores the northernmost reaches of the Marias River (and therefore the Louisiana Territory). It will mean they will be split at one point into 4 separate groups. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 25 | Lewis & Clark: Having reached the Yellowstone (with some guiding assistance from Sacagawea), Clark's group has re-entered the Great Plains, built two dugouts, been stopped on the river by a huge buffalo herd, and now comes to a sandstone outcropping east of present-day Billings, Montana. He names it Pompy's Tower, in honor of Sacagawea's son, nicknamed Little Pomp. And on the rock face, Clark inscribes his name and the date – the only physical evidence the Corps of Discovery left on the landscape that survives to this day. Lewis and three men, meanwhile, are now 300 miles away, near the Canadian border and what is now Cut Bank, Montana. | Ref: 65 |
| Jul 26 | Lewis & Clark: (and 27th) Heading back toward the Missouri, Lewis sees eight Blackfeet warriors. They camp together warily, but the morning of the 27th the explorers catch the Blackfeet trying to steal their horses and guns. In the fight that follows, two Blackfeet are killed – the only act of bloodshed during the entire expedition. Lewis leaves a peace medal around the neck of one of the corpses "that they might be informed who we were." The explorers gallop away, riding for 24 straight hours, meet the group with the canoes on the Missouri, and paddle off toward the rendezvous with Clark. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 12 | Lewis & Clark: Downstream from the mouth of the Yellowstone, the entire expedition is finally reunited. | Ref: 65 |
| Aug 14 | Lewis & Clark: They arrive back at the Mandan villages. John Colter is given permission to leave the expedition and return to the Yellowstone to trap beaver (and become one of the first American "mountain men"). The captains say good-bye to Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and Baptiste. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 20 | Lewis & Clark: The men see a cow on the shore and raise a cheer at the sign that they are finally returning to the settlements; that day they reach La Charette. | Ref: 65 |
| Sep 23 | Lewis & Clark: Their last day as the Corps of Discovery. They reach St. Louis. Having been gone nearly two and a half years, they had been given up for dead by the citizens, who greet the explorers enthusiastically. "Now," young John Ordway writes, "we intend to return to our native homes to see our parents once more, as we have been so long from them." | Ref: 65 |
- 1809
| Oct 11 | Lewis & Clark: Traveling east along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, on his way from St. Louis to Washington, Lewis commits suicide at Grinder's Stand, an inn south of Nashville. (Later, theories that he was murdered arise, but neither Clark nor Jefferson doubted the original, on-site reports that Lewis had shot himself. Few historians give credence to the the murder theory.). Lewis was 35. | Ref: 65 |
- 1812
| Jun 04 | The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | Lewis & Clark: At Fort Manuel in what is now South Dakota, Sacagawea dies. Clark, in St. Louis, assumes custody of Jean Baptiste and her infant daughter, Lisette. (Later, legends arise that it was Charbonneau's other wife that died, that Sacagawea lived until the late 1800s and died on the Shoshone reservation in Wyoming; even fewer historians give much weight to this.). | Ref: 65 |
- 1838
| Sep 01 | Lewis & Clark: William Clark had married Julia "Judith" Hancock, for whom he named a river in Montana; been respected as Indian agent (Native Americans called St. Louis the "Red-Headed Chief's Town"); successful in business; and several times appointed governor of the Missouri Territory (though he lost the first election to be the new state's governor, after being accused of being too "soft" on Indians). On this date he dies, at age 68, at the home of his eldest son, Meriwether Lewis Clark. | Ref: 65 |
- 1839
| Jun 10 | Nathaniel Pryor sgt of Lewis & Clark Expedition, dies. | Ref: 5 |
- 1870
| Apr 01 | Patrick Gass Sergeant of Lewis & Clark Expedition, dies at 98. | Ref: 5 |
- 1902
| Jun 28 | Congress authorizes Louisiana Purchase Expo $1 gold coin. | Ref: 5 |
- 1904
| Apr 13 | Lewis & Clark: Congress authorizes the Lewis & Clark Expo $1 gold coin. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | Louis and Clark: Louisiana Purchase Exposition opens in St Louis. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | Louisiana Purchase Exposition opens in St. Louis; Autos & new confection, ice cream cone, revealed. | Ref: 10 |
- 1905
| Jun 01 | Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition opens in Portland, Oregon. | Ref: 5 |
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The Lewis & Clark Expedition Chronology