Hanover, IN[1]No known record exists of Lewis’s travel between Big Bone Lick and Louisville. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at … Continue reading Meriwether Lewis is moving down the Ohio towards Louisville, where William Clark is expecting his arrival. Just days up the Ohio River, two contemporary travelers, one the nephew of Daniel Boone, share news with Thomas Rodney.
Daniel Boone, 1820
By Chester Harding (1792–1866
Oil on canvas. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, NPG.2015.102.
News of Daniel Boone
Boon told me that his Unkle Daniel, who is remarkable for having lived on Kentucky River long before it was settle by whites, has removed on the west side of the Misisipi and lives 40 miles up the Misouri;
—Thomas Rodney[2]12 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), … Continue reading
We do not know if Lewis crossed paths with Daniel Boone‘s nephew, but the captains were aware of Daniel’s residence near La Charrette when they passed on 25 May 1804.
Rough Night
Traveling by horse along the Ohio river was difficult. Daniel Boone’s nephew related the following:
He [Daniel Boone’s nephew] and his wife in coming here last night were belated and obliged to lodge in the wilderness all night without fire and her horse had mired by the river side and had thrown her in the river so that both had like to have been lost.
—Thomas Rodney[3]Ibid.
Notes
| ↑1 | No known record exists of Lewis’s travel between Big Bone Lick and Louisville. We do know that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October and that he arrived at the Falls of the Ohio on 14 October. Using Thomas Rodney’s journal and Cramer’s 1802 river guide, The Navigator, one conjecture is that Lewis stopped for the night at present-day Hanover near this date. |
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| ↑2 | 12 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 117. |
| ↑3 | Ibid. |
