Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains, September 20, 1805

Specimens for Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) were lost or destroyed during the trip. However the Charleston Museum has a garden specimen grown from seeds possibly gathered by the expedition. Specimens were gathered possibly near Pattee Creek, Lehmi Co., Idaho, on 13 Aug 1805, or in the Bitterroot Mountains on September 20, 1805.

This Northwest Native shrub has lovely pink or white bell-shaped flowers and pure white berries which usually last well through winter and often into spring, providing food for birds and other wildlife. Beautiful in the landscape. We especially like it planted with native roses for winter interest. The rose's red hips and Snowberry's white fruit make a charming combination.

A fine morning. Wind from the S.E. At about 11 o'clock the wind shifted to the N.W. We prepare all things ready to speak to the Indians. Mr. Tabeau and Mr. Gravelines came to breakfast with us. The chiefs, &c., came from the lower town, but none from the two upper towns, which are the largest. We continue to delay and wait for them. At twelve o'clock, dispatched Gravelines to invite them to come down. We have every reason to believe that a jealousy exists between the villages for fear of our making the first chief of the lower village. At one o'clock, the chiefs all assembled, and after some little ceremony, the council commenced. We informed them what we had told the others before, i.e., Otos and Sioux. Made three chiefs, one for each village. Gave them presents. After the council was over, we shot the air gun, which astonished them much. They then departed, and we rested secure all night. Those Indians were much astonished at my servant. They never saw a black man before. All flocked around him and examined him from top to toe. He carried on the joke and made himself more terrible than we wished him to do. Those Indians are not fond of spirits- liquor of any kind.

Captain Clark, 10 October 1804

We know the "black man" mentioned here was York, the man Captain Clark "inherited" as a slave from his father. York and Clark became lifelong companions though much of this association was as one human "owning" another.

York was, to the native peoples the expedition met along the way, the most curious and interesting of the entire traveling group. Though the expedition included quite a variety of people such as farmers and frontiersmen from Virginia, fur trappers who were French-Canadian, a young Indian woman and her baby and even a dog, York was the one person everyone wanted to see.

York shared all the duties of the enlisted men and was often called upon as a showpiece, paraded about and ordered to dance, and stood while the native peoples "examined him from top to toe." Though this was undoubtedly humiliating and degrading treatment, York retained his personal grace and the journaling expedition members noted that he appeared to enjoy showing his physical abilities to the native visitors.

Though regularly treated as a sort of sideshow (and  In truth, many of the expedition were put on display whenever the native peoples showed an interest in seeing them), Mr. York was allowed rights unheard of for an enslaved man. He carried a weapon and was given a vote on where to establish the winter camp along the Pacific Ocean in 1805.

He repaid these allowances many times over, even risking his life to save Clark in a flash flood on the Missouri River near Great Falls in present-day Montana. He hunted and brought in much game for the larder, saw to pitching the captain's tents, worked the sails and rowed when needed, in general doing much the same things all the other men in the expedition did. As the adventure progressed, the travelers forged themselves into a team, a pioneering family that came together to explore the continent of North America.

However much of a family the expedition became, the fact remained that York was still a slave. In Lewis's report to Congress, he listed the members of the Corps who had made the journey to the west and back, he neglected to mention York. And after the journey was over, York asked Clark for his freedom as payment for his services on the trip. Clark refused this request and then complained that York "has got Such a notion about freedom and emence Services [on the expedition], that I do not expect he will be of much Service to me again."

This painting is by Idaho artist, Roy Reynolds. We think it depicts this outstanding man as he probably was in real life.

Eventually, Clark did free York and as severance gave him wherewithall to start a freight business between Nashville and Richmond, including a wagon and six horses. It is said that in his later years, York entertained companions with stories about his adventures with the expedition—stories that reportedly became taller with each telling. It is also said he became a heavy drinker which may have been a factor of the growing yarns. It sounds to us as though he was not unusual in the socializing and storytelling. As we age, we often remember the past as a bit more glorious and exciting than we noticed it being the first time through.

According to letters written by Captain Clark, York died of cholera sometime between 1822 and 1832 somewhere in Tennessee. He is likely buried in an unmarked grave.