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Heading west in 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition kept running into the same problem: it was carrying more than the next stretch of travel could bear. Four times the captains solved it the same way. They dug a hole, buried what they could spare, hid what would not fit, and bet that they would come back the same way to collect it. Each of those caches marks a point where the journey changed — from river to portage, from boat to horse, and back to boat.
How to bury a warehouse
The expedition's cache-builder was Pierre Cruzatte, who had built caches before. Several journal writers describe the method at the first site:
- Choose higher, drier ground.
- Cut a hole only about 20 inches wide through the sod.
- Dig down six to seven feet.
- Line and separate the goods with dried sticks and animal skins to protect them from the earth.
- Replace the sod so the "safe" cannot be seen.
The narrow opening and the replaced sod mattered. As Sergeant John Ordway wrote at the third site, the point was to hide the baggage "undiscovred from the natives."
The four sites
| Cache | When and where | What was left |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | June 9, 1805, east of the Continental Divide near where the Marias River meets the Missouri | Extra ammunition, axes, hammers, chisels, flour, pork, salt, tin cups, animal skins, beaver traps and more — and the larger red pirogue, pulled onto a small island near the mouth of the Marias and tied to trees so the next spring's high water would not carry it off |
| 2 | Around the Great Falls portage, with a second pit dug on July 10 | At the lower portage camp: the white pirogue hidden in the willows below the falls, and in a pit Lewis's desk, books, plant and mineral specimens, kegs of pork, more ammunition, flour, two blunderbusses and personal items. The swivel gun from the keelboat was left too — "deposited the swivel and carriage under the rocks a little above the camp near the river," Lewis wrote. At the upper portage camp, a pit for Lewis's experimental iron-framed boat, some papers and a few other items |
| 3 | Mid-August 1805, near the Beaverhead River at Camp Fortunate | Everything that could not be hauled over the mountains. The dugout canoes were sunk in the river |
| 4 | Early October 1805, beside the Clearwater River among the Nez Perce | Several lead canisters of gunpowder and some balls; the saddles were hidden nearby |
Why each cache happened where it did
- The Marias. The expedition was about to leave the navigable Missouri behind. The biggest boat and the heaviest spares were more than it could take upstream.
- The Great Falls. Everything had to be carried around the falls on foot, so anything not essential stayed at the portage camps — including Lewis's iron-framed boat.
- Camp Fortunate. The search for the Shoshone had been long and stressful. Crossing the Continental Divide now meant horses, so the canoes went to the bottom of the river and the rest into the ground. On August 21, 1805, Ordway recorded "four men sent to dig a hole or carsh," and after dark the baggage was carried to it.
- The Clearwater. Here the journey turned back to river travel. The captains arranged for the Nez Perce to care for the horses until the expedition returned — so the saddles, like the powder, were put away to wait.
Sources
Based on "The Four Cache Sites," National Park Service, which quotes the journals of Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Лицензия: CC0 1.0 (общественное достояние) · По материалам www.nps.gov
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