Leaving St. Louis on 21 September, the Clarks family was accompanied across the Mississippi River to Cahokia, IL by Major David Delaunay, Adj. General of the Militia; Major Clement Penrose; Militia Colonel Pierre Chouteau and his family; Sheriff Jeremiah Connor and others. A party of friends and family traveling a short distance with a departing family member or traveling to meet the guest is not an unusual occurrence in the early 1800’s, a similar situation seen later in Clark’s 1809 Journal. The Clark group stayed in Cahokia the evening of the 21st then took the old French Colonial Military Road through Prairie du Rocher to Kaskaskia, IL arriving late on 23 Sept. https://www2.illinois.gov/dnrhistoric/Experience/Sites/Southwest/pages/cahokia-courthouse.aspx

Clark would have viewed the old Fort de Chartres, completed in 1720, as they traveled to Kaskaskia.⁽¹⁾ It is possible that William would have remembered viewing the fort in 1803 as he and the crew moved the keelboat up the Mississippi River. http://theamericanbottom.org/itineraryThree.html

Kaskaskia was the first State Capital of IL and a pivotal town in George Rogers Clark’s Revolutionary War successful winning of the Northwest for the United States. We can reasonably assume that Clark remembered his earlier visits to Kaskaskia in connection with settling George’s war debts and the visit to the Fort to recruit troops for the expedition in 1803. It is likely that the Clark Family and enslaved servants stayed with William Morrison that evening. William Morrison was a partner with Clark and others in the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company. http://morrison.chester.lib.il.us/

The flood of 1881 changed the channel of the Mississippi River when it cut through to the Kaskaskia River. That flood and subsequent floods destroyed the colonial community of Kaskaskia on the north side of the Kaskaskia River.⁽²⁾⁽³⁾

Leaving Kaskaskia on the 24th, the Clark party traveled the Kaskaskia Trail and the Worthen Trail through Randolph, Perry, Franklin, Williamson and Pope Counties, IL, arriving at Lusk Ferry, (Sarahsville in some reports) on the Ohio River, 24 September. A large portion of this route is today within the Shawnee National Forest.⁽⁴⁾⁽⁵⁾