N3830

Lewis & Clark Expedition - Bicentennial

Fred's Anecdotal Note

Old Toby - Over the Roc\r Mountains

The visit with Cameahwait had gone very well, but on August 26th the temperature hit the freezing point. Clearly the mountains would soon be impassable. Lewis told the chief he wanted to obtain additional horses and a guide to which Cameahwait agreed. On September 1st the Corps began their ascent. The willing guide was an old man who had once crossed the towering mountains, and the captains called him Old Toby. Every man knew that they were now in danger of being swallowed by the brutal harshness of nature - never to be heard from again. Their fate and the success or failure of the expedition was now in the hands of the aging Shoshone. On the very first day, Clark described the trail "over rocky hillsides where our horses were in perpetual danger of slipping to their certain distrucrtion " He wrote that the Corps proceeded, "with the greatest dificuelty & risqude." On the third it snowed and Clark wtote, "we passed over emence hills" and "our horses frequently fell." By the sixth the snowcapped Bitterroots rose to the heavens and Sgt. Gass wrote they were "the most terrible mountains I ever beheld." Onward and upward went the men. On September 14th it hailed and snowed with the situation becoming critical when Old Toby got lost. Clark wrote, "much worse than yesterday...excessively bad & thickly strowed with falling timber...steep & stoney." The hunters found no game and Clark recorded "we wer compelled to kill a colt to eat."

The next day Toby got his bearings. On the 16th it got worse. The hard, driving snow had started during the night and it continued all day. Visibility was almost non-existent. With starvation and freezing looming, the situation was desparate. On the 18th Clark went ahead with six hunters to try to find game. By the 21st as they descended, Lewis wrote, "I find myself growing weak for the want of food and most of the men complain of a similar deficiency." The next day, Private Reubin Field who had been with Clark, met the expedition with dried fish and roots. Clark had made contact with the Nez Perce Indians and obtained food. With Old Toby leading the way they had done it! Lewis later wrote, "we suffered everything cold, hunger, & fatigue could impart."