Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/57

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F. G. Young.
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STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK'S JOURNALS. 51 man, yet in this affair apparently quite lacking in busi- ness habits had either forgotten their existence or, like Biddle, considered them as of slight historical value. His seemingly careless treatment of them would appear to bear out the last conclusion. Clark (who died in 1838) lived at a fine country homestead, "Minoma," in the out- skirts of St. Louis, and kept all his private papers pigeon- holed in an old secretary. This piece of furniture came into the possession of his third son, George Rogers Han- cock Clark, who in later years roughly arranged his father's papers into bundles and labeled them. His daughter, Mrs. Voorhis, some half dozen years ago, first examined these in a general way, and at once recognized their value as literary material; she was, indeed, she states, engaged in preparing some* of the documents for publication when the present writer came upon the scene. His search for the Ordway journal stimulated Mrs. and Miss Voorhis into a closer scrutiny of their family treas- ures, and in due course negotiations were entered into with them, resulting in the inclusion of all their Lewis and Clark material in the projected publication of the original journals of the expedition. It has often been asserted that Sergeant Pryor wrote a journal of the expedition, and some have assumed that Biddle used it in preparing the narrative of 1814; but evidence to this effect seems to be wanting in any event, no one now seems to know the whereabouts of this manu- script. The journal (12,500 words, covering the dates March 13-August 18, 1804,) of Sergeant Floyd, the only man of the party to meet death during the trip, 32 was, in the spring of 1805, sent from Fort Mandan to his parents 32 Floyd, aged about 20 years (possibly 23), died near the site of the present Sioux City, Iowa, May 14, 1804, and was buried on the top of a neighboring bluff. The site is now marked by a stately stone monument dedicated (May 30, 1901,) to his memory by the Floyd Memorial Association. See reports of the association First, 1897 ; second, 1901.