Will be traveling to see it on 9/3!
Posted on 08/16/2004 4:25:24 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
FORT CLATSOP, Ore. (AP) - Inside tiny Fort Clatsop, they were together again. The Lewises were there. So were the Clarks, the Floyds, and the Charbonneaus, the Gass family, the Whiteheads and more. Or at least their DNA was, some diluted across generations, some of it rock-solid.
Descendants of the members of the Lewis and Clark Voyage of Discovery gathered over the weekend on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, the western terminus of the voyage where the party of 33 spent the miserable winter of 1805-1806.
The reunion coincided with the three-year-long bicentennial celebration of the journey. Participants came from as near as nearby small towns and from as far as China and Nigeria.
Genealogist Sandi Hargrove was in charge of tracking all the relations down. "They'd say something like 'We've always been told we were related to so-and-so but they never told us how,'" he said.
Of the 740 people at the weekend reunion, 167 were descendants of Sgt. Patrick Gass, or of his close relatives.
"He lived to be 99 and I would have loved to have met him," said Sandra Shakel, a great-great granddaughter who lives in Placitas, N.M.
The nation is celebrating the bicentennial of the expedition's departure from the St. Louis region, when the explorers and a roughly 40-member crew set off to explore the Louisiana Territory and seek a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean.
The explorers logged about 8,000 miles as they navigated the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, reached the Pacific and returned with knowledge of the land and its natives.
Expedition members were mostly young, footloose enlisted men and many simply evaporated into history, becoming as anonymous after the 28-month voyage as they were before it started.
Hargrove, who was president of two genealogical societies and taught the subject at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, said she was approached by groups preparing for the celebration of the voyage's 200th anniversary.
Her five-year search included attempts to find relatives of the Indian translator Sacajawea and her infant son, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, whose father was Toussaint Charbonneau, hired halfway through the voyage west as an interpreter.
Whether she has descendants is not clear. Jean-Baptiste died in 1866 and Sacajawea herself had at least one daughter. When and where Sacajawea died, and whether there were other children, is not clear.
In all, the project was able to document 1,669 relatives, using birth, death and marriage certificates, wills and other resources.
Meriwether Lewis, who died in 1809, had no known direct descendants, but 40 descendants of his close relatives, were there. There were a few descendants of William Clark.
Larry Whitehouse, of Fort Worth, Texas, a direct descendant of Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse, stuck his head into the cramped rooms of the fort replica rebuilt 50 years ago from drawings and descriptions in Lewis and Clark's journals.
"It's really neat to imagine 200 years later, here we are," he said. "Can you imagine they were here doing this?"
NOTE: Please visit the Lewis & Clark Commemoration site.
If you can't go to the region, at least celebrate with me on this thread. (As for me, I've already been on the Columbia and to Oregon coast twice this summer.)
Feel free to post any and all links, comments, and trip tips here!
A year or so ago, either PBS of the Discovery/History channels had a big program about L&C..they found some of their campsites....did you see it..if not..well worth purchasing a video..
BUMP for later comments.
Did you catch the IMAX flick on the expedition? The photography was spectacular, especially on such a huge screen.
Will be traveling to see it on 9/3!
Yes - that was super. I should get video....
Last autumn I drove to Missoula, Montana and returned to Spokane via Lola Pass, the route they took over the Bitteroots. Spectacular scenery, if I had more time I would have camped along the route. Truly inconceivable what they accomplished two centuries ago!
In their early 30's, 30 people in the group (losing only one to medical condition), over 8,000 miles roundtrip. It's astonishing. And I still marvel at the mapping skills Clark must have had.
Droulliard was the one who fascinated me the most out of the whole clan. I wonder if any of his people were there.
Ping.
One of my Lewis ancestors was a cousin of Meriwether's. There's my very small personal connection to the story.
I recommend that everyone travel at least a portion of the route, especially the northern Rockies, in order to appreciate how great an accomplishment the Lewis and Clark Expedition really was.
Interesting read. I've been following the news of the reenactment.
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