Who:
Captain Lewis
explorer
Where:
Twin Bridges, MT
Excerpt from and August 6, 1805 journal entry; Captain Lewis describing some of their tribulations
Whitehouse is in much pain this evening with the injury one of his legs sustained from the canoe today, at the time it upset and swung over him. Captain Clark's ankle is also very painful to him. We should have given the party a day's rest somewhere near this place had not this accident happened, as I had determined to take some observations to fix the latitude and longitude of these forks. Our merchandise, medicine, &c., are not sufficiently dry this evening. We covered them securely for the evening. Captain Clark had ascended the river about nine miles from this place on course of S 30° W before he met with Drouilliard. We believe that the N.W. or rapid fork is the drain of the melting snows of the mountains, and that it is not as long as the middle fork, and does not at all seasons of the year supply anything like as much water as the other, and that about this season it rises to its greatest height. This last appears from the apparent bed of the river, which is now overflowed, and the water in many places spreads through old channels which have their bottoms covered with grass that has grown this season, and is such as appears on the parts of the bottom not inundated. We therefore determined that the middle fork was that which ought of right to bear the name we had given to the lower portion, or River Jefferson; and called the bold, rapid, and clear stream Wisdom; and the more mild and placid one which flows in from the S.E. Philanthropy, in commemoration of two of those cardinal virtues which have so eminently marked that deservedly celebrated character through life.
