Sacajawea (187 page)

2
. Nicholas Biddle, then a young lawyer living in Philadelphia, edited Clark’s journals. Several times Clark went to Philadelphia to help Biddle. The editing occupied Biddle from March 25,1810, until July 8,1811. He rewrote the journals in narrative form because he felt this made the story more interesting and readable. Actually Biddle lost the flavor of Lewis’s and Clark’s own words and unique spelling.

Several times Clark sent George Shannon to help with the editing process between his studies for the law. Once Clark wrote to Shannon (April 20, 1811), “Dear George, write me all about my Book.” Bakeless, p. 430.

Clark chose the Philadelphia botanist, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, to rewrite the scientific notes of his journal. But Dr. Barton died and the scientific notes never appeared.

Toward the end of Biddle’s editing, he ran for and was elected to the legislature. Biddle then turned over the final editing work to another Philadelphia man, Paul Allen. Allen’s name appears on the title page of the completed works. Allen could not find a publisher for the two small volumes he finally put together until 1814. A printing of two thousand was made of these two volumes, but 583 were lost or defective. The publishers went bankrupt and sales were nil. Two years later Clark tried to locate a printed copy of his ownjournals and could not. Neither Clark, Biddle, nor Shannon received any part of the $154.10 profit Paul Allen made on the two volumes. Bakeless, pp. 430–1; R. G. Ferris, pp. 239, 247–49; Kennerly, p. 28.

3
. George Shannon was studying to be a lawyer at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky.

CHAPTER 38
Otter Woman’s Sickness

1
. Charbonneau sold his land to Clark for $100 and the transaction is recorded in the St. Louis court for March 26, 1811.

2
. Father François Neil’s school, which young Toussaint, called Tess, attended, grew and finally became what is now St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. This same school, then an academy for boys, was attended by General Clark’s son, Bill.

3
. The Baptist minister, Mr. J. E. Welch, specifically boarded Indians and half-breed boys. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, or Pomp, was enrolled in this school in the fall of 1811, when he was six years old. Several years later, Clark sent his youngest son, Jefferson, who was nicknamed Pomp after Sacajawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, to college at The Barrens, which was on the Missouri side of the river, but across from the Illinois French town of Kaskaskia. Clark firmly believed in education to teach his boys responsibility for the obligations they incurred in their future frontier life. From
Persimmon Hill,
by William Clark Kennerly, p. 83. Copyright 1948 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

CHAPTER 39
New Madrid Earthquake

1
. Clark’s Spanish style home in St. Louis had once been the home of Benito Vasquez, father of Pierre Louis Vasquez, who with his mountain-man partner, Jim Bridger, opened Fort Bridger on the Oregon Trail. Franzwa, p. 284.

Kennerly, p. 25, wrote that General Clark rented the house of Benito Vasquez, on the corner of Pine and Main streets. Clark brought a piano from New York for his wife, Judy. It was a great event, as she was the only lady in the area who could play it. From
Persimmon Hill,
by William Clark Kennerly. Copyright 1948 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

2
. The 1811 New Madrid earthquake was one of the heaviest on record. Aftershocks went on for more than a year. This is an earthquake hotspot, 150 miles from St. Louis. The New Madrid fault seems to be a 1,700 mile rift around the intersection of the Missouri Gravity Low and the Reelfoot Rift. Underwood, Sec. E, pp. 1, 3; also, Penick, pp. 1–181.

Book Five
LIFE AND DEATH

1
. Henry M. Brackenridge, “Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri,” in Thwaites, Vol. VI, 1816, 1904, pp. 32–3.

2
. The Missouri Fur Company was organized in 1807 by Manuel Lisa, with William Clark as one of the principal stockholders.

3
.
From John C. Luttig, Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, 1812–1813,
edited by Stella M. Drumm, 1920.

Frazier says, “The infant Lizette is never mentioned again. This may be due to the unimportance of girl babies in the minds of chroniclers, or she may die soon.” Neta Lohnes Frazier,
Sacajawea, The Girl Nobody Knows.
New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1967, p. 147.

4
. This cash accounts book is in the Graff Collection at the Newberry Library, Chicago. It has sixty-eight leaves, 22.2 × 14 cm., bound in original gray boards, with sheep backstrip and corners. The binding has been repaired. It is in a black, half-morocco case. Former owners: William Clark, George Rogers Hancock Clark, Mrs. Julia Clark Voorhis. Sold at auction by G. A. Baker and Co., 1941.

5
. American State Papers, Abstract of Expenditures by Captain W. Clark as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 1822; Washington, D.C., 1834.

6
. Will Robinson, secretary of the South Dakota State Historical Society, wrote to A.L.W. in 1968 that he was certain Sacajawea had died when she was about twenty-five years old, at Fort Manuel.

7
. From
Persimmon Hill,
by William Clark Kennerly, p. 351. Copyright 1948 by the University of Oklahoma Press; Grace Raymond Hebard,
Sacajawea, A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957, p. 116.

8
. Published in Portland, Oregon, by Binfords and Mort, 1936.

9
. Hugh Monroe, a Canadian fur trader, told a story about his being caught in a blizzard and attacked by Assiniboins on the upper Missouri River. When he arrived at one of the Mandan villages he was taken in by old Toussaint Charbonneau. Monroe was given food and a place in the lodge to sleep by one of the women of Charbonneau, Sacajawea. During Monroe’s stay, old Charbonneau grumbled because he had lost his horse in a game of chance and now could do no trading until he could buy another horse. Monroe gave him one of the horses from his string to show his appreciation for the food and lodging. The eleven-year-old Jean Baptiste was happy the family had another horse and told Monroe how he felt. However, in a couple of days old Charbonneau lost this new horse. Jean Baptiste became so angry with his father that he cried. This story took place in 1816. Thus, if it is true, Sacajawea was alive in 1816, and did not die in 1812. Schultz, pp. 37–62.

10
. Hebard, 1957, p. 115.

11
. Hebard, 1957, pp. 118, 121, 123–4, 127.

12
. Hebard, 1957, p. 174.

13
.
Eastman,
Report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1925.

14
. Hafen, Ann W., 1950, p. 39–66.

15
. After about 1821, when Toussaint, son of old Charbonneau and Otter Woman, finished his schooling at Clark’s expense, nothing is found about him in the early writings of the hunters, explorers, and traders until William Boggs discovered him at Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River in 1844. Jean Baptiste is at Bent’s Fort at the same time.

“Another half-breed at the Fort was ‘Tessou.’ His father was French and his mother an Indian, but the writer was not informed of what tribe. ‘Tessou’ was in some way related to Charbenau (Jean Baptiste). Both of them were very high strung but Tessou was quick and passionate. He fired a rifle across the court of the Fort at the head of a large negro blacksmith, only missing his skull about a quarter of an inch, because the negro had been in a party that chivaried Tessou the evening before (maybe Tessou was just married) and being a dangerous man, Captain Vrain gave him an outfit and sent him away from the Fort.” [Boggs, pp. 66–7.]

This son of Charbonneau is not mentioned in any early western writing again, as far as has been determined to date. However, Frazier builds a case for Tess arriving on the Shoshoni Wind River Reservation, keeping his true identity hidden and passing himself off as his famous half brother, Jean Baptiste. Frazier, pp. 163–66.

16
. Hebard was the first to try to show that the old woman who died on the Wind River Reservation in 1884 was Sacajawea. Since then there have been others, notably Frazier, pp. 140–74; Clark and Edmonds, pp. 109–45. Harold Howard has written a fine biography titled
Sacajawea,
published in 1971 by the University of Oklahoma Press, which surmises that Sacajawea died at Fort Manuel Lisa in 1812. Schroer wrote an article for
In Wyoming
in 1978 supporting Sacajawea’s early death.

CHAPTER 40
Lizette

1
. Between December 16,1811, and March 15,1812, Jared Brooks of Louisville, Kentucky, recorded 1,874 shocks. He classified eight as “violent,” 10 as “severe,” 35 as “moderate,” 65 as “generally perceptible,” 89 as “fifth-rate,” and 1,667 as “indistinctly felt.” Most people claimed that the three earthquakes occurring on December 16, 1811, January 23, 1812, and February 7, 1812, were the largest. Some thought the last was the most severe, with the earth in “a nearly constant motion” for several days. Aftershocks occurred for more than a year. James Audubon, like many people, seemed to adapt. He said, “Strange to say, I for one became accustomed to the feeling.” Underwood, Sec. E, pp. 1, 3.

2
. James Schultz says Charbonneau had two Snake wives and it was Otter Woman who died shortly afterthe expedition returned. Clark and Edmonds, p. 107.

CHAPTER 41
School

1
. Charles Lucas was twenty-five years old, United States Attorney for the Territory of Missouri. “Had he lived, he doubtless would have attained eminence at the Missouri bar.” Kennerly says that this duel was one of the most regrettable ones ever fought in St. Louis. From
Persimmon Hill,
by William Clark Kennerly, pp. 77–9. Copyright 1948 by the University of Oklahoma Press; see also, Lavender, p. 23.

2
. This coin was presented to Clark by Chief Strawberry on the day both General Lafayette and the Duke of Saxe-Weimar visited this famous museum. The museum was a wing attached to the south end of the Clarks’ newly built residence, a two-story brick, set on a lot going half a block south on Main and east down to the river. The museum was a great hall, one hundred feet long and thirty-five feet wide. Kennerly, p. 41.

CHAPTER 42
Duke Paul

1
. The Kaw River is the present Kansas River.

2. About half a mile up the right bank of the Missouri River from where the Kansas flows into the Missouri, within the present Kansas City, Kansas, was a settlement of fur traders and two large buildings owned by Cyrus Curtis and Andrew Woods. The latter worked for the Chouteau fur enterprises. Mrs. Woods was a Creole and daughter of the eighty-three-year-old Canadian, Jacques Chauvin, who lived near St. Charles, Missouri. Others in that small settlement were mainly Creoles and half-breeds who farmed, hunted, and traded with the Kansas Indians. From
Travels in North America, 1822–1824,
by Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg, transl. by W. Robert Nitske and edited by Savoie Lottinville, p. 270. Copyright 1973 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

3
. Louis Caillou was a Creole boatman. Grand Louis was a hunter and trapper from Cahokia and later from St. Charles. Duke Paul wrote: ‘This true son of the wilderness, reared in the dense forest and in the communion of Indian tribes and company of hunters and boatmen, whose inclination to drink and immoralityoften exceeded the bounds of all human dignity, had under his leather jacket a heart sensitive to better feelings.” From
Travels in North America, 1822–1824,
by Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg, translated by W. Robert Nitske and edited by Savoie Lottinville, p. 268. Copyright 1973 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Old Roudeau may have been Joseph Robidoux, who had a trading post close to present-day St. Joseph, Missouri.

4
. On May 5,1823, Paul Wilhelm requested General Clark in St. Louis to furnish him a passport to travel up the Missouri River. He explained that the object of this trip was for his own instruction. The request was granted on June 10,1823, by the secretary of war. Grace Raymond Hebard,
Sacajawea, A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957, p. 118.

5
. In a personal letter, June 2, 1967, Dr. Lissberger, head of the Library Board, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, in Stuttgart, Germany, wrote, “Duke Paul’s journals have been handed over to the Stuttgart National Library. However, they had been destroyed here in 1944 by war operations, despite the protection of a concrete cover. Solely, three small notebooks, with records about the fourth trip, and encompassing the time from December 11, 1852, until May 30, 1853, have remained preserved, by chance.”

Dr. Karin v. Maur, director of Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany, in a letter to A.L.W. dated December 27, 1966, stated that: “An old painting of Duke Paul and his Indian Boy hung in one of the school buildings in Stuttgart, but must have been destroyed during the war, or it was a watercolor by Mollhausen which has a more ethnographic rather than artistic value, and may be kept in the National Museum in Washington.”

The National Museum in Washington, D.C., has no record and cannot find such a picture, oil or watercolor.

Linda Virga, a student at the University of Hamburg, 1968, forwarded these references on the life of Duke Paul:
Allgemeinen Deutschen Biographie,
Vol. 25, 1887, p. 243;
Bibliographie der Württembergischen Geschichte
, by Wilhelm Heyd, Vol. 2, 1896, p. 701. No mention is made of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau in either reference.

On January 10, 1967, Dr. Schuz, Museumsdirektor Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in Stuttgart, wrote that he read in an old copy of the
Franconian Chronical Mergenthein,
November 11, 1926: “Duke Paul brought a young Sioux chief to Germany at the end of his 1850 trip to the United States. The Sioux’s name was Haucmonc. He was so unhappy that he was soon back to New York and then on to his native village.”