Meriwether Lewis’s final journey took him along the Natchez Trace in 1809, culminating in his death at Grinder’s Stand near present-day Hohenwald, Tennessee. He was traveling to Washington, D.C. to address financial and administrative issues related to his governorship of the Louisiana Territory. His death, attributed to gunshot wounds, remains a subject of historical debate, with some accounts suggesting suicide and others hinting at foul play. In addition to Lewis’ death, 1809 recorded additional significant events. James Madison succeeded Thomas Jefferson as the fourth U.S. president, the Napoleonic Wars raged in Europe, and the births of Charles Darwin and Abraham […]
If you want to make a pilgrimage to the grave site of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau and need to get there from the north, this trip may inspire you. It starts in Boise, Idaho at a Lewis and Clark and Nez Perce-themed sculpture and ends at his grave. Along the way are historic Snake River crossings, Owyhee Country views, two museums, and a remote and rugged landscape largely unchanged since 1866. This historic travel corridor served freight and stage traffic from California withstops at mining towns such as Star City, Ruby (Silver City), and the newly opened mines beyond Boise. Jean […]
In May 1866, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau—a baby and toddler on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806)—left his long-time home in Auburn, California with a vague destination and unknown purpose. During his long life, he had traveled throughout the old West and Europe, but this trip would be his last. This inspiration trip follows his most likely route—one traveled by hundreds of miners and teamsters to get to the burgeoning mines in the present states of Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. Along the way, you can see an old mining site, a unique art installation, the Humboldt Museum, and natural wonders such […]
After a month at their Fort Clatsop winter quarters, Sacagawea had still not seen the Pacific Ocean. This would soon change: “Capt Clark set out after an early breakfast with the party in two canoes as had been concerted the last evening; Charbono and his Indian woman were also of the party; the Indian woman was very impotunate to be permited to go, and was therefore indulged; she observed that she had traveled a long way with us to see the great waters, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be seen, she thought it very hard she […]
The first part of the final journey of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau visits his home of 17 years where he worked among the gold-rich ravines surrounding Auburn, California. The trip begins at the grave of fellow Lewis and Clark Expedition member Alexander Hamilton Willard, buried in Elk Grove, California. It then explores Auburn and crosses the Sierra Mountains via Donner Pass—the likely route taken by Jean Baptiste in May 1866. On his final journey, Jean Baptiste, two companions, and hundreds of miners and teamsters were traveling east and north along wagon roads eroded by pioneers and miners heading west to California […]