You Are Here - Old Franklin, N. of Boonville, MO - 'You Are Here' Maps on Waymarking.com

County of marker: Howard County
Location of marker: State Hwy 87 & Katy Trail, NW of Boonville
Sponsored by: William Kerr Foundation
Erected By: Missouri department of Natural Resources; Lewis & Clark Trail, National Park Service, Department of the Interior; Missouri's Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission
Date Erected: 2000

Marker Text:

THE LEWIS AND CALRK EXPEDITION
ACROSS MISSOURI

  "I ... found the Countrey for one mile back good Land and well watered   the hills not high with a
  gentle assent from the river, well timbered with oake, walnit Hickory ash, &c. the land Still further
  back becomes thin and open, with Black & rasp Berries, and Still further back the Plains
  Commence."
          William Clark, June 7, 1804

The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled up the Missouri River past here on June 8, 1804. On June 7, the party had camped at the mouth of Bonne Femme Creek, at what is now Franklin Island Conservation Area. Capt. Meriwether Lewis and two men made a short trip up the Bonne Femme (Capt. William Clark called it "Good Womans River"). The expedition's French boatmen, or engagés, had said it was navigable by pirogues for some distance.

For the first time on the journey, one of the hunters, George Drouillard, killed a black bear - in fact, a female and two cubs. The meat had to be cached overnight on the south side of the river. The nest morning, June 8, the party picked up the bear meat. The was [sic]current so strong that "the hands had great difficulty in crossing the River to us," wrote Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse. Clark noted in his journal "a number of Deer Licks" on a creek (perhaps present-day Rue Branch in Boonville). Shortly after, Clark and Sgt. Charles Floyd left the keelboat and walked along the south side of the river where Clark observed the landscape. Arriving at the mouth of the Lamine River, they met the rest of the party and "Dined in the point above the mouth of this River."

The mouth of the Lamine River was an overnight camp for the expedition on the return to St. Louis from the Pacific Ocean. The Corps of Discovery camped there on Sept. 18, 1806, two years and four months after embarking on their journey. The next day, anxious to make good time, they reached the Osage River, 72 miles downriver. The same stretch had taken them about six days in June, 1804. From the Osage, the expedition needed only four more days to reach St. Louis, the end of the expedition.

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PASSAGE THROUGH THE GARDEN The Missouri River landscape greatly impressed member of the expedition. The journal keepers express similar praise: Clark's "Butiful Prarie" (present-day Cole County); Ordway's "the Country around is Delightful" (Boone County); Floyd's "a Butifull a peas of Land as ever I saw walnut shoger tree ash and mulber trees" (Grey's Creek, Cole County); Gass's "this is a very handsome place, - a rich soil and pleasant country:" (Gasconade River, Gasconade County); and Whitehouse's "a well timber'd country, having fine bottoms with rich soil" (Moniteau Creek, Boone and Howard Counties). All noted the variety of landscapes, including tall bluffs, dense forests, tributary streams and rivers, lush prairie, cedar islands, freshwater and salt springs, caves, and tangles of cane, rush, nettle and blackberry. Away from Euro-American settlement, the wildlife hunted for daily sustenance was plentiful. Expedition members often saw the land as hunters and farmers, and judged it accordingly. Clark, raised on a plantation, noted some "2d rate" land on June 4 opposite Sugar Loaf Rock. The first site of cows as the party near St. Louis on their return "caused a shout to be raised for joy."

Location Name: Old Franklin

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