Hansen's Northwest Native Plant Database

Celebrating The Corps of Discovery Expedition Bicentennial

Originally Published February 6, 2003

The Expedition's Journey Continues:

Fort Clatsop's mid-winter brought new foods, new friends and new customs to the group. Some journal entries by Captain Lewis:  

February 07, 1806
Meriwether Lewis

This evening we had what I call an excellent supper it consisted of a marrowbone a piece and a brisket of boiled Elk that had the appearance of a little fat on it. This for Fort Clatsop is living in high stile.

In this neighbourhood I observe the honeysuckle common in our country I first met with it on the waters of the Kooskooske near the Chopunnish nation, and again below the grand rappids In the Columbian Valley on tidewater. The Elder also common to our country grows in great abundance in the rich woodlands on this side of the rocky Mountains; tho' it differs Here in the colour of it's berry, this being of a pale sky blue while that of the U' States is a deep perple. The seven bark or nine-bark as it is called in the U' States is also common in this quarter. There is a species of huckleberry common to the piny lands from the commencement of the Columbian valley to the seacoast; it rises to the hight of 6 or 8 feet. is a simple branching some what defuse stem; the main body or trunk is cilindric and of a dark brown, while the colateral branches are green smoth, squar, and put forth anumber of alternate branches of the same colour and form from the two horizontal sides only. the fruit is a small deep perple berry which the natives inform us is very good. the leaf is thin of a pale green and small being ¾ of an inch in length and ⅜ in width; oval terminateing more accutely at the apex than near the insertion of the footstalk which is at the base; veined, nearly entire, serrate but so slightly so that it is scarcely perceptile; footstalk short and there position with rispect to each other is alternate and two ranked, proceeding from the horizontal sides of the bough only.

The small pox has distroyed a great number of the natives in this quarter. It prevailed about 4 years since among the Clatsops and destroy[ed] several hundred of them, four of their chiefs fell victyms to it's ravages.

February 12, 1806
Meriwether Lewis

This morning we were visited by a Clatsop man who brought with him three dogs as a remuneration for the Elk which himself and nation had stolen from us some little time since, however the dogs took the alarm and ran off; ...

Throughout the months spent at the fort, Captains Lewis and Clark pursued their missions with diligence and zeal. It's curious that Captain Lewis, a comparatively young man of 28, was so interested in plants. We think he gained his botanical curiosity and thirst for knowledge quite literally at his mother's knee--she was an herbalist. She acquainted him with the trees, shrubs, and flowers of his home to the east of the Mississippi. Building on this foundation, President Jefferson sent him to Philadelphia to study the science of botany. Under Benjamin Barton, Meriwether gained a good understanding of the plant classification standard developed by Carl Linnaeus. Though he knew the Latin words, Captain Lewis rarely used them. Perhaps he felt more at home with the common names.

Go to our Corps of Discovery Expedition Bicentennial Index page to see all links in this series. Or click here to go directly to the next installment of our journey.

Named after the local Clatsop tribe of Native Americans, construction of the fort began on December 9 and the captains moved into their quarters (still unroofed) two days before Christmas 1805. The original stockade was a small cramped wooden structure, more of a barracks than a defensible structure. By their own accounts, the Corps members were largely miserable during the damp cold winter on the Pacific Coast. Whereas the previous winter on the Great Plains (in present-day central North Dakota) they spent a great amount of time with the local Mandan tribe, at Fort Clatsop their interaction with the local Clatsop was not social and was limited mostly to small-scale trading. The fort was opened to trading only 24 days during the entire winter. They remained at the fort for three months, until March 23, 1806, when they departed on their return trip home.

The original Fort Clatsop decayed in the wet climate of the region but was reconstructed in 1955 from sketches in the journals of William Clark. In the late evening of October 3, 2005, a fire destroyed the replica fort. A 9-1-1 operator's insistence that the fire was no more than fog over the nearby Lewis and Clark River delayed firefighters’ arrival by about 15 minutes, possibly impacting their ability to save part of the structure. Investigators found no evidence of arson. The fire started in one of the enlisted men's quarters, where earlier in the day there had been an open hearth fire burning.

The replacement replica was completed in December 2006. In spite of the loss, the fire renewed archaeological interest in the site, as excavations had not been possible while the replica was standing. Additionally, the new replica was built utilizing information on the original fort that was not available for the 1955 replica. The 2006 replica also features a fire detection system.

The site is now protected as part of the Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks, and is also known as Fort Clatsop National Memorial. A replica of the fort was constructed for the sesquicentennial in 1955 and lasted for fifty years; it was severely damaged by fire in early October 2005, weeks before Fort Clatsop's bicentennial. A new replica, more rustic and rough-hewn, was built by about 700 volunteers in 2006; it opened with a dedication ceremony that took place on December 9.

Thanks to Wikipedia for this information: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Clatsop

1955 replica, a photo of the National

Register of Historic Places listing with reference number 66000640.

The fire of 2005 that destroyed

the first replica.

Photo by Glenn Scofield Williams

of the replica completed in 2007.