First Across the Continent | Page 4

the explorers were provided, to aid them
in establishing peaceful relations with the Indians, might amuse traders
of the present day. But in those primitive times, and among peoples
entirely ignorant of the white man's riches and resources, coats richly
laced with gilt braid, red trousers, medals, flags, knives, colored
handkerchiefs, paints, small looking-glasses, beads and tomahawks
were believed to be so attractive to the simple-minded red man that he
would gladly do much and give much of his own to win such prizes. Of
these fine things there were fourteen large bales and one box. The
stores of the expedition were clothing, working tools, fire-arms, food
supplies, powder, ball, lead for bullets, and flints for the guns then in
use, the old-fashioned flint-lock rifle and musket being still in vogue in
our country; for all of this was at the beginning of the present century.
As the party was to begin their long journey by ascending the Missouri
River, their means of travel were provided in three boats. The largest, a
keel-boat, fifty-five feet long and drawing three feet of water, carried a
big square sail and twenty-two seats for oarsmen. On board this craft
was a small swivel gun. The other two boats were of that variety of
open craft known as pirogue, a craft shaped like a flat-iron,
square-sterned, flat-bottomed, roomy, of light draft, and usually
provided with four oars and a square sail which could be used when the
wind was aft, and which also served as a tent, or night shelter, on shore.
Two horses, for hunting or other occasional service, were led along the
banks of the river.
As we have seen, President Jefferson, whose master mind organized
and devised this expedition, had dwelt longingly on the prospect of
crossing the continent from the headwaters of the Missouri to the
headwaters of the then newly-discovered Columbia. The route thus
explored was more difficult than that which was later travelled by the

first emigrants across the continent to California. That route lies up the
Platte River, through what is known as the South Pass of the Rocky
Mountains, by Great Salt Lake and down the valley of the Humboldt
into California, crossing the Sierra Nevada at any one of several points
leading into the valley of the Sacramento. The route, which was opened
by the gold-seekers, was followed by the first railroads built across the
continent. The route that lay so firmly in Jefferson's mind, and which
was followed up with incredible hardships by the Lewis and Clark
expedition, has since been traversed by two railroads, built after the
first transcontinental rails were laid. If Jefferson had desired to find the
shortest and most feasible route across the continent, he would have
pointed to the South Pass and Utah basin trails. But these would have
led the explorers into California, then and long afterwards a Spanish
possession. The entire line finally traced over the Great Divide lay
within the territory of the United States.
But it must be remembered that while the expedition was being
organized, the vast Territory of Louisiana was as yet a French
possession. Before the party were brought together and their supplies
collected, the territory passed under the jurisdiction of the United States.
Nevertheless, that jurisdiction was not immediately acknowledged by
the officials who, up to that time, had been the representatives of the
French and Spanish governments. Part of the territory was transferred
from Spain to France and then from France to the United States. It was
intended that the exploring party should pass the winter of 1803-4 in St.
Louis, then a mere village which had been commonly known as Pain
Court. But the Spanish governor of the province had not been officially
told that the country had been transferred to the United States, and,
after the Spanish manner, he forbade the passage of the Americans
through his jurisdiction. In those days communication between frontier
posts and points lying far to the eastward of the Mississippi was very
difficult; it required six weeks to carry the mails between New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington to St. Louis; and this was the reason why
a treaty, ratified in July, was not officially heard of in St. Louis as late
as December of that year. The explorers, shut out of Spanish territory,
recrossed the Mississippi and wintered at the mouth of Wood River,
just above St. Louis, on the eastern side of the great river, in United

States territory. As a matter of record, it may be said here that the
actual transfer of the lower part of the territory--commonly known as
Orleans--took place at New Orleans, December 20, 1803, and the
transfer of the upper part was effected at St. Louis, March 10, 1804,
before the Lewis and Clark expedition had started on