CEDAR COUNTY, NEBRASKA - WILL CEDAR COUNTY MARK SPOT WHERE LEWIS AND CLARK STOPPED ==================================================================== NEGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the NEGenWeb Archives by Carol Tramp Permission granted by: Rob Dump, Editor, Cedar County News ====================================================================== CEDAR COUNTY NEWS September 19, 1929 WILL CEDAR COUNTY MARK SPOT WHERE LEWIS AND CLARK STOPPED What part will Cedar county play in the establishment of a monument to the memory of Lewis, leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition? Cedar county should take part in the movement because Lewis and Clark camped near St. Helena 58 years before Cedar county was organized. August 28, 1804, they landed on the bank of the Missouri and walked up Calumet Bluff about five miles northeast of St. Helena. Calumet Bluff is now Bentz Hill, named after Doctor Bentz who homesteaded there. The leaders of the party held council and smoked the pipe of peace with the Indians. Then Chief Shake Hand said, “You see me and the rest of our chiefs. We are very poor. We have no powder, nor ball nor knives; and our women and children at the village have no clothes... Still we are poor and I wish, brothers, you would give us something for our squaws.” Gifts were given and a peace afterward broken by the white men was sealed. From Calumet Bluff the exploring party went up the Missouri at the rate of about 15 miles a day, part of the time using sails, part of the time oars, and much of the time ropes with which the men walking along the shore pulled the boats. On Sept. 4, they camped just above the mouth of the Niobara river, where for the first time they met the Ponca Indians, who had made their home in that part of Nebraska, a long time. A short distance beyond they saw herds of buffalo, elk, and deer and villages of prairie dogs. Two years later, in 1806, Lewis and Clark returned, having mapped the route to the Pacific thru the tract of land then called the Louisiana purchase. In 1803 this territory, between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains was bought by Thomas Jefferson then president, from Napolean Bonaparte, then emperor of France, for a price of $16,000,000 or about three cents an acre. It was Jefferson who sent Lewis and his friend Clark with a crew of 45 men to explore the territory. They started from Wood River near the mouth of the Little Nemaha on July 15. After the return of the expedition President Jefferson in 1807 made Lewis governor of the land which he had explored, with his capital at St. Lewis. In 1809 while the governor was making a trip to Washington to see the president he was mysteriously slain in the cabin of a pioneer public house called "Grinders Inn,” near Nashville, Tenn. Tennessee placed a stone at Nashville in 1848 to honor Lewis' memory. This stone will be replaced by a larger one for which congress will be asked an appropriation. To this shrine each state that was carved from the Louisiana purchase will be asked to add a small monument. States which were once part of the purchase include Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Monatana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Each of these states will also be asked to name a hiway for Lewis and Clark, and it is the aim of the memorial association to have a complete Lewis and Clark hiway extending from the mouth of the Columbia river to the spot where Lewis’ body lies. P.E. Cox of Nashville, Tenn., is president of the Meriwether Lewis Association founded in 1924 to further the movement. Mr. Cox and W.H. Eagle, assistant attorney general of Tennessee, were in Omaha a few weeks ago urging Nebraska to join in their work. At Lincoln Mr. Cox spoke under the auspices of the Nebraska Historical Society. A few years ago the Country club, a group of farm women near Wynot, erected a monument to Henson Wiseman, commemorating the spot on which his family was slain by Indians while he was serving in the army. The spot where Lewis and Clark and their party camped in county will be of historical interest over the year and should be marked where they camped.