Lewis & Clark
DISPATCHES FROM THE DISCOVERY TRAIL EPISODE 14
After Great Falls, the Fourth of July and a Failed Experiment By Michael O. Perry
A
fter a grueling eleven days portaging around the Great Falls, finishing on July 2, 1805, the men were exhausted and needed a rest. Thus, the Corps began celebrating Independence Day a little early. Pierre Cruzatte played his fiddle, and the men danced as they drank the last of the whiskey. While the men probably fired their guns, Mother Nature also made a little noise that day. Since their arrival at the falls, the men had repeatedly heard a noise resembling the discharge of a six-pound cannon at a distance of three miles. Initially, it was thought to be thunder. But, Lewis himself “heard this noise very distinctly, it was perfectly calm, clear and not a cloud to be seen.” He heard three such discharges in an hour. The men had reported hearing up to seven discharges in quick succession. Interestingly, while these noises are still heard to this day, nobody has yet come up with a verifiable explanation. A grand experiment One of the more memorable lines in the 1975 movie “Jaws” was Police
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Chief Martin Brody telling Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Lewis and Clark had the opposite problem. As the Corps of Discovery traveled up the Missouri River, they would have to abandon their large boats as the river grew shallower. Dugout canoes replaced the larger boats, but they were unstable and would not carry much of a load. Captain Lewis had foreseen this problem in 1803 while making plans for the expedition and designed what came to be called “The Experiment.” The federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, constructed a portable iron boat frame that Lewis believed could be covered with buffalo hides and used to carry provisions when the water became too shallow for the heavy wooden boats.
Armory Superintendent Joseph Perkins (left) and Captain Meriwether Lewis inspecting the collapsible iron boat frame built at Harpers Ferry in 1803.
While no drawings exist, records indicate the assembled boat was 36 feet long and 4-1/2 feet wide. The frame was made of wrought iron ribs that could be assembled with screws. According to Lewis’ description, there were two designs used for the individual sections: one curved, or in the shape necessary for the stem and stern, the other semi-cylindrical, or in the form of those sections which constitute the body of the canoe. There were a total of eight sections, each about 4-1/2 feet long, that could be fastened together to make the boat frame. Each
... underestimated the time ...
All they needed was pitch to seal it up. It would’ve been the cat’s meow because when they loaded that thing up, when they first put it in the water when it didn’t leak, it carried some 8,000 pounds of goods. But an hour later it was sinking.”
Michael Perry enjoys local history and travel. His popular 33-installment Lewis & Clark series appeared in Columbia River Reader’s early years and helped shape its identity and zeitgeist. After two encores, the series has been expanded and published in a book. Details, pages 2, 39.
Joseph Fields, Capt. Lewis, Patrick Gass and John Shields stretching leather skins over the iron boat frame. Both illustrations by Keith Rocco for Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. National Park Service.
section weighed 22 pounds, for a total of 176 pounds of iron. The total weight of the iron, hides, wood, and bark needed for the entire boat would be 500 pounds. In an 1805 letter to President Jefferson from Fort Mandan, Lewis wrote, “Our baggage is all embarked on board six small canoes and two pirogues: we shall set out at the same moment that we dispatch the” keelboat back to St. Louis. “One or perhaps, both of these pirogues we shall leave at the falls of the Missouri, from whence we intend continuing our voyage in the canoes and a perogue of skins, the frame of which was prepared at Harper’s Ferry. This perogue is now in a situation which will enable us to prepare it in the course of a few hours.” The best-laid plans
O. P E R R Y
dispatches MICHAEL
from the
Discovery Trail with
HAL CALBOM DEBBY NEELY
by woodcut art
A LAYMAN’S
K
LEWIS & CLAR
As Lewis predicted, the red pirogue was buried in a cache near the mouth of Maria’s river on June 9th, and the
white pirogue placed in a cache at the base of the Great Falls two weeks later. However, Lewis drastically underestimated the amount of time required to assemble the portable boat. The first of the four portages made around the Great Falls began on June 21 and contained the materials to assemble the iron boat. Lewis already saw a problem: “I readily perceive difficulties in preparing the leather boat which are the want of convenient and proper timber; bark, skins, and above all that of pitch to pay” [seal] “her seams, a deficiency that I really know not how to surmount…” The frame was quickly assembled while the skins from 28 elk and four buffalo were prepared to cover it. The final portage around the Great Falls was completed on July 2nd. cont page 7
In April 2021 we introduced a revised and expanded version of Michael Perry’s popular series which was expanded In the new book, Dispatches from the Discovery Trail, edited by Hal Calbom and published by CRRPress. It includes an in-depth author interview and new illustrations and commentary. Columbia River Reader / June 15, 2022 / 5
