Lewis&Clark Expedition Gets Halting Start in Pittsburgh

George Washington came to Logstown, just downriver from modern-day Pittsburgh,  several times to add to his substantial land holdings.

When he died, he was holding more than 52,000 acres. All of it, of course, had at one time been Indian land.

Sound like alot of acreage?

That paled (a rather appropriate verb) compared to land scouted and surveyed by a later visitor.

Meriwether Lewis made an unwilling stop at Logstown just as he was beginning the famous Lewis&Clark expedition to explore what white men could do with 530 million acres of Indian land America just bought from the French.

But, before we get into that, let’s take a quiz to review information about Logstown covered in the first three parts of this series.

Do You Know Logstown Yet?

1. A hollow tree on the river bank at Logstown was so large that:

• 29 men could sit in a circle inside and eat dinner.
• It could be seen from McKees Rocks.
• When it fell, half the town was destroyed.
• A French Jesuit Priest noted in his journal that he dined inside the tree with 28 other men. They were not hobbits.

2. Logstown is best described as:

• A peaceful, ancient hamlet where little happened.
• An unruly company town peopled by traders, Indian trappers and hunters, and where frontier diplomacy was carried on.
• A ceremonial center where large trees were honored.
• A French trading company built log houses for Indian suppliers as it tried to stave off English companies intent on obtaining and developing Indian land.

3. George Washington's Seneca name was Conotocaurious, which means:

• Great Father
• Lover of Daisies
• Devourer of Villages
• Indians called George that because they remembered that was the name they gave to his great-grandfather after he wiped out Indian towns in Virginia and Maryland four generations earlier. George went on to order a campaign of annihilation against Iroquois allied with the British during the Revolution.

4. Members of many Indian nations lived at Logstown, including the Shawnee and Lenna Lenape (Delaware), but the two chiefs in charge at the village represented who?

• The French
• The Iroquois Confederation
• King George
• The Iroquois, based in what is now New York State, was a powerful alliance of six nations that controlled (or tried to) tribes in Pennsylvania.

5. French companies and their employees wanted continued access to furs in this region. English companies, their customers and freelancing settlers wanted land. What did Indians want?

• To be left alone.
• Access to worldwide goods at favorable prices, freedom and sovereignty.
• Strings of beads.
• Indians had been trading for European goods for 200 years. They were dependent on them. They also wanted to maintain their independence both culturally and politically.

How did you do?

If you got all five right, you can treat yourself to a free keg of rum at the trading post.

Lewis & Pittsburgh

If not, don’t worry about it. You know enough now to read how Meriwether Lewis got past Logstown to become one of America’s biggest celebrities, and likely its first celebrity suicide.

His Corps of Discovery expedition boat was built in Pittsburgh. That was a mistake.

Continue reading…