William Clark came to Kentucky with
his parents in 1784. In 1789 he fought the Indians in
an expedition led by Col. John Hardin. In 1790 he was
sent on a mission to the Creek and Cherokee nations
and in 1791 served as an ensign and acting lieutenant
on the expeditions under general Scott and Wilkinson
against the native Americans on the Wabash. General
Washington commissioned him a first lieutenant in the
4th Sub Legion under General Wayne in March 1793.
William came home to Kentucky in 1796
and lived with his parents at Mulberry Hill. When they
died, he inherited the homestead but sold it to his
brother, Jonathan, in 1800. He then moved to Clarksville,
Indiana, with his brother, George
Rogers Clark.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to make a western
expedition to establish an American presence in the
far northwest; to investigate a water passage to the
Western Sea; to map and investigate the new Louisiana
purchase; to report the culture, commerce, and capabilities
of the many native-American tribes of the area; and
to observe and collect botanical and biological specimens.
Members of the expedition assembled at
Louisville, KY, in October, 1803, and moved on to camp
above St. Louis on the east bank of the Mississippi
for the winter, pending signing of the Louisiana Purchase.
Upon reaching the native Mandan villages in present-day
South Dakota, they acquired the services of Toussaint
Charbonneau, a French trader, and his pregnant 15-year-old
Shoshone wife, Sacagewea (Suh-COG-uh-wea, "Bird
Woman"), as interpreters, not as guides.
By June of 1805, Lewis
and Clark and their party were at the Great Falls
of present-day Montana and made a difficult 10-day portage
around it. Obtaining horses from the Shoshones, they
crossed the Bitterroot Mountains, came down the Columbia
River to the Pacific Ocean in late November, and wintered
at Fort Clatsop (Oregon). The expedition returned to
St. Louis on September 20, 1806, to the astonishment
of many who had given them up for dead months before. After
disbanding most of the company, Lewis and Clark returned
east in October, pausing for three weeks at Locust
Grove, home of Clark's sister, Lucy Clark Croghan.
Lewis then moved on to report to the President in Washington
City where Clark later joined him.
After Clark's marriage in 1808, he was
appointed Indian agent at St. Louis. In 1813, he was
made Governor of the Missouri Territory. In 1822, President
Monroe appointed him Superintendent of Indian Affairs
to establish and secure treaties with the western tribes.
He died in St. Louis in 1838, esteemed by all who knew
him.
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General William Clark
facts
William Clark, born in 1770, was the only son
of John and Ann Rogers Clark’s six sons
who did not participate in the Revolutionary War.
William Clark was married twice. He and older brother
Jonathan are the only siblings whose ancestors continue
the Clark name.
York, William Clark’s slave who accompanied
Clark on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was not
granted his freedom, or manumitted, until over a
decade after their return from the Pacific.
William Clark’s grandson, Meriwether Lewis
Clark, Jr. founded the Louisville Jockey Club, later
Churchill Downs, and the Kentucky Derby. |
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