Clark‘s contraction of the muscular system appears about this date and stays with him down the Ohio and Up the Mississippi. They are likely near Hanging Rock, an Ohio River landmark near present Rockport, Indiana that no longer exists.
Split Rock on the Ohio River, c. 1909
by Kraemer Art, from Ronald Morgan Kentucky Postcard Collection, Graphic 5, Courtesy Kentucky Historical Society, www.kyhistory.com/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Morgan/id/1970/rec/140.
Clark’s Contraction
Writing to his brother Jonathan on 16 December 1803, William Clark reports that he became ill sometime after leaving Louisville:
a fiew days after I parted with on the river bank, I was taken Violent ill by a Contraction of the muskelur Sistem, this indisposition Continued Several days and was ultimately removed by the exertions & Close attention of Capt. Lewis.
Brother
Wm Clark[1]James J. Holmberg, ed. Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 60.
Hanging Rock
A[t] the point on the NW shore where this bar ends there is a small remarkable rocky mountain in the midst of the plain country. A large round stone part of the mountain has been broke off by its own weight by the rock below dissolving or moultering away, and in its fall has made a great road in the side of the rock that the mountain is composed of, which is to be seen 8 or ten miles before you git to it. The lump of rock aforesaid that rolld down persued it course to the verge of the river where it stoped and appears as you approach it like a haystack.
—Thomas Rodney[2]24 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
Rodney’s Small Remarkable Mountain?
© 2024 by Richard Hunt. Used by permission.
Rodney’s hanging rock that may have broken from this cliff, no longer exists. If Lewis or Clark had any thoughts about this small abutment, they did not—as far as we know—record them in writing.
Notes
| ↑1 | James J. Holmberg, ed. Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 60. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | 24 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), 134. |
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).