As Lewis is floating toward Chickasaw Bluffs (Ft. Pickering), William, Julia, 8 month old Meriwether Lewis Clark and enslaved servants Scott, Chloe, and their daughter Rachel, leave St. Louis on 21 September 1809 in their carriage.⁽¹⁾ William’s eventual destination was Washington D.C., where he planned to meet Lewis to settle their rejected Bills of Exchange and address other business pertinent to the Upper Louisiana Territory.  Lewis’ work would include publication of the expedition journals, a work he would never complete.

Fortunately, William, with Julia’s occasional additions, kept a journal of their travel and related expenses. This phase of the website narrative will follow the chronology of their trip. For a full reading of the Clark’s 1809 Journal, owned and preserved by the State Historical Society of Missouri and digitized with the financial assistance of the Lewis and Clark Trust, please see: https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/frontier/id/1042/  

A testimony to the significance of the 1809 William Clark Journal comes from an address by the late Dr. Donald Jackson at the Society of Manuscripts 1972, Winter Meeting. “A Footnote to the Lewis and Clark Expedition” is an outstanding view of the journal and the importance in understanding William Clark’s thinking and actions after he learns of Meriwether Lewis’ death.⁽²⁾ Jo Ann Trogdon, The Unknown Travels and Dubious Pursuits of William Clark, opens the window further to understand the complicated man, William Clark and the international political intrigues of the era. Her examination of Clark’s 1798 business trip to New Orleans then to the east coast by sailing ship and the overland return to Louisville shows his cartographic skills and journal writing before the Western Explorations with Meriwether Lewis.⁽³⁾

Reading Clark’s 1809 Journal can be an interesting challenge. Grammar and spelling conventions were still in a state of considerable disagreement. Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language,⁽⁴⁾ and the later Noah Webster’s dictionary first appeared in 1806. William Clark had little time to use the dictionary, even if he had the one he purchased in 1792 in Frederick, MD or Pittsburgh, PA.⁽⁵⁾ The 1809 Journal is a forerunner to Gideon Davidson’s “The Fashionable Tour” published in 1822 or Duncan Hinds, Adventures in Good Eating or Hinds’ 1957 Lodging For A Night. Clark’s comments on the quality of their lodging and food is a true socioeconomic commentary on the regions they traveled through. Many writers have commented and been amused with Clark’s spelling and penmanship, yet his 21 September 1807 letter to Thomas Jefferson describing the Big Bone Lick (KY) excavation, shows clear penmanship and thoughtful language.⁽⁶⁾ He did have a habit of writing fast when under pressure to get a letter or note written. In his letter to brother Jonathan Clark on 28 October 1809, William ended with, I hope you will excuse my hasty scraul (scrawl).⁽⁷⁾ Albert Furtwangler said, “combining words to say something memorable or exact was a difficult labor, which we have already seen both of these men could perform astonishingly well”.⁽⁸⁾ The Clark Journal is a compilation of notes by date and must read as notes and not a manuscript. In many respects, the 1809 Journal is akin to Clark’s Field Notes – 13 December 1803-3 April 1805, edited by Ernest Staples Osgood, Yale University Press, 1964 or the Elk Skin Journal of 1805, Missouri Historical Society, ID #A0289-20305. 

History is about people – their struggles, joys, sorrows, virtues, short comings, and migrations. William Clark’s 1809 Journal is filled with all of these including his ownership of enslaved people, a situation we recognize today as abhorrent. Yet we also see a husband, father, and friend to his fellowman that labors daily to be of service to all. 

For reasons unknown, Clark divided the journal into two parts. Section one (1) is the brief account of the day after day travels. Section two (2) is a list of day-to-day expenses and miles traveled. The two sections provide a clear picture of their travel experience and his state of mind. Additionally, William has recorded notes to himself that relate to the Federal Fur Factory business and the price of products sent to the factories for trade or operation of the several fur trade factories. Equally interesting, we can see the lack of financial institutions or a standardized credit system. William’s trustworthiness is reflected when his father-in-law asked him to exchange a $700.00 bank note and silver for delivery to General Preston. Barter was generally accepted for financial transactions during the period when the United States had no standard banking system. The infant banking system was filled with state-chartered banks and in most cases those banks were chartered without gold or silver reserves to back the paper transactions. The 1818/1819 financial crash eventually brought about a long-needed restructuring of financial institutions.⁽⁹⁾ 

Congressman Henry Clay was a champion of a National Road System, partially based on his travel on frontier trails. If Clay had read Clarks 1809 Journal, he would have been an even stronger advocate for public road improvements.⁽¹⁰⁾ Clark details the drastic need for public roads to accommodate commerce, postal routes, and personal travel were all part of the need for better roads in-addition to a stronger banking system.

We hope you will take the time to read the full 1809 Journal to understand the man who lived in the shadow of Meriwether Lewis. While Lewis promised Clark an equal rank and sharing of honors, a promise he kept, Clark was viewed by President Jefferson as a “second in command” during the western exploration. After Lewis’ tragic death, Clark quickly grasped and accepted his responsibility in securing the Journals and other high priority documents needed to preserve the exploration history and to defend Meriwether Lewis’ integrity. As readers of the journal and this website will see, Jefferson added immensely to Clark’s securing the journals and other documents that helped vindicate Meriwether Lewis and the financial affairs relating to the Upper Louisiana Territory. The 1809 Journal is a window to Clark’s recognition that the journals, he and Lewis had prepared, were now his obligation to see through to publication. 

During the period immediately following Lewis’ death, Clark was urged to seek the position of Territorial Governor, a position he did not desire in part because he was aware of the personal objectives of the St. Louis bureaucrats and people with strong political interest. Raised during the Period of Enlightenment, Clark kept his focus and reasoned priorities in order, culminating in a successful publication of the Lewis and Clark Journals in 1814. The fact that he never received compensation for the publication and his difficulty in getting a copy does not seem to be of lingering concern. 

When Clark was appointed Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory in June 1813, he did a splendid job at a time of great change in the American West. Clark, while still a relatively young man, became a “Citizen Senior” in the West and in Washington D.C.⁽¹¹⁾ The age-old question, “does the time make the man or does the man make the time”, will be debated forever but Clark had been trained from early in life to accept responsibility as a “Citizen Senior” and serve admirably as Governor. (11)