Lewis and Clark Point of Departure

It wasn''t known what happened at "Camp Dubois" or "Camp Wood River," until Captain William Clark''s notes were discovered in 1953 in St. Paul, Minnesota in an attic and covered with dust. Now we have some idea from these notes. While not a complete record, it does indicate what the Captains Lewis and Clark felt they had to do to bring the party into a complete military and functioning unit. The importance of the five plus months spent here and around the Alton, Wood River, and Hartford area was an opportunity for the Captains to observe, test, and determine who, in their minds, would be best suited for such an undertaking as the expedition that President Jefferson wanted them to complete. For the most part this responsibility fell onto Captain Clark, as Captain Lewis was busy with details and collection of needed maps and necessary items in St. Louis and Cahokia. Little is mentioned in these "lately founded notes" of the activities that pertained to the preparing for the journey ahead. Such as parching corn, rendered fat into tallow and lard, the packing of powder and shot, and making of sugar from the sap of area maple trees. As tough as these young men were, each had skills to learn, and "learned skills" to teach others. At Camp Dubois, the "training camp or whipping into shape" began. These men lived together, slept together, fought and drank together. There were fights and misconduct as well as punishments handed down by not only the Captains but by the men themselves. They learned who could be depended on and whom they couldn''t. In other words what they learned was to SURVIVE. They learned that in order to do that, they had to do it together. What they learned at Camp Dubois stayed with them to the Pacific Ocean and back to St. Louis. They came together as a team and a unit on May 14th 1804, when they left the safe haven of the Illinois shoreline and crossed the Mississippi River and went up the mighty Missouri to the unknown land and waterways that lay bef

Notes on Timothy Raymer:Born in Wood River Illinois, raised in East Alton and lives in Hartford Illinois. Married Carolyn Waterman in 1962 and has two sons, Kevin and Jason, and two grandchildren. Both sons enjoy hunting and fishing and many other outdoor activities. He retired from Warehouse Management in 2000 and is a member of theGeneral George Rogers Clark Chapter of the Illinois Society of the Sons of theAmerican Revolution.¿¿ He was raised around the confluence of the, now Wood River Creek (RiverDubois) and the Mississippi River.¿ Spend most of his life less than mile from the River Dubois or Wood River Creek. Becameinterested in the Lewis and Clark encampment while he was a young boy sittingon the floor, along with his brothers, Kenneth and Jim, next to his mother'sand father's knees, listening to the stories about when they were young(1901-1920) in southeastern Missouri.¿His mother told them about Lewis and Clark, the camping, hunting,building a camp or fort, teaching the art of soldiering to their men, sheencouraged them to do as they did and get out and enjoy outdoor life.¿ Years later when getting interested in genealogy he found on thecomputer items and history that made him remember all the things his mother hadtold him and his brothers about Lewis and Clark.¿ He watched as the new Lewis and Clark State Historic Site being built,near Hartford, Illinois.¿ At the completion, in the fallof 2002, he volunteered to work in the Interpretative Center and the Center's Store of Discovery.In the Store he had access to many books and newer book almostweekly.¿ Many he purchased,other he checked out of the local library.¿After reading several versions of the Journals volume II, he developedhis own theory as to where the encampment actually was; he is one of a fewpeople who believe that the actual encampment was further inland than at theriver edge as first believed by many others in the past.¿ He recalled visits to Hartford and rememberingthe flood of 1943 and how f