William Clark (explorer) Totally Explained

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William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor who, with Meriwether Lewis, led the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Career prior to the expedition

William Clark was born in Caroline County, Virginia on August 1, 1770, the ninth of the ten children of John and Ann Rogers Clark. Like many young men of the lesser Virginia gentry, Clark didn't have any formal education. Although the spelling of American English wasn't standardized at this time, Clark's lack of standard instruction is reflected in both the grammar and the spelling he employed in the journals he kept throughout the famous expedition he undertook with Meriwether Lewis.
   Clark's five older brothers fought in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), but William was too young to go off to battle. His brother George Rogers Clark was a general in the Virginia militia, and spent most of the war in Kentucky County, Virginia, fighting against American Indians, who were allies of the British. After the war, George Rogers Clark resettled his parents, William, and three sisters at "Mulberry Hill", a plantation near Louisville, Kentucky. They arrived in the spring of 1786, having traveled over land to the Ohio River valley before completing the journey by boat.
   In Kentucky, an undeclared war with American Indians north of the Ohio River continued after the Revolutionary War. In 1789, William Clark joined a volunteer militia force under Major John Hardin in an expedition against Wea Indians on the Wabash River who had been raiding settlements in Kentucky. Unfortunately, the undisciplined Kentucky militia instead attacked a peaceful Shawnee hunting camp, killing eight men, women, and children. In 1790 Clark was sent on a mission to the Creek and Cherokee Indians.
   In 1791 he served as an ensign and acting lieutenant with expeditions under Generals Charles Scott and James Wilkinson. Clark was commissioned as a first lieutenant by General Washington in the fourth legion under General Anthony Wayne in 1793. He was involved in several skirmishes with Indians, and was thanked by General Wayne for his good conduct during the campaign. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 by commanding of a company of riflemen which drove back the enemy on the left flank, killing a number of Indians and Canadians.
   In 1795 he was dispatched on a mission to New Madrid.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

William Clark resigned his commission in 1796 and retired due to poor health and constipation, returning to Mulberry Hill, his family plantation near Louisville. In 1803, he was asked by Meriwether Lewis to share command of the newly-formed Corps of Discovery. Clark spent three years on the expedition, and although technically subordinate to Lewis in rank, he exercised equal authority at Lewis's insistence. He concentrated chiefly on the drawing of maps, the management of the expedition's supplies, and leading hunting.

Indian affairs and war

Clark was appointed the brigadier general of the militia in the Louisiana Territory in 1807, which made him the agent for Indian affairs. He set up his headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. During the War of 1812, he led several campaigns, among them in 1814 one along the Mississippi River, up to the Prairie du Chien-area, where he established short lived Fort Shelby, the first post in what is now Wisconsin. It was captured by the British soon. When the Missouri Territory was formed in 1813, Clark was appointed governor. When Missouri became a state in 1820, Clark was defeated in the run for governor by Alexander McNair. In 1822 he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs by president James Monroe, a new position created by congress after the factory system was abolished. Clark remained in that capacity until his death, his title changed with the creation of the Office of Indian Affairs in 1824 and finally the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1829, both within the War Department.
In 1824/25 he was additionally appointed surveyor general of Illinois, Missouri and the Territory of Arkansaw.
Clark married Julia Hancock on January 5, 1808, and had five children with her: Meriwether Lewis Clark (1809-1881) named after his friend Meriwether Lewis; William Preston Clark (1811-1840); Mary Margaret Clark (1814-1821); George Rogers Hancock Clark (1816-1858), named after her older brother; and John Julius Clark (1818-1831). After Julia's death in 1820, he married her first cousin Harriet Kennerly Radford and had three children with her: Jefferson Kearny Clark (1824-1900); Edmund Clark (1826-1827); and Harriet Clark (dates unknown; died as child). His second wife died in 1831. His stepdaughter Mary Radford married Stephen Watts Kearny Clark died in St. Louis on September 1, 1838 and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, where a 35-foot (10.6 m) gray granite obelisk was erected to mark his grave.

Legacy

Although his family had established endowments to maintain his grave site, by the late 20th century the grave site had fallen into disrepair. His descendants raised $100,000 to rehabilitate the obelisk and celebrated the re-dedication with a ceremony May 21, 2004, on the bicentennial of the start of his famous expedition. The ceremony was attended by a large gathering of his descendants, reenactors in period dress, and leaders from the Osage Nation, and the Lemhi band of the Shoshone Native American people.
Clark was a member of the Freemasons. The records of his initiation don't exist, but on September 18, 1809, Saint Louis Lodge No. 111 issued a traveling certificate for Clark. (External Link

).
On January 17, 2001, in one of his last acts as President, Bill Clinton posthumously raised Clark's regular army rank to captain. Descendants of Clark were there to mark the occasion. (External Link

) The western American plant genus Clarkia (in the Evening primrose family Onagraceae), is named after him, as are the Western cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki), Clark's Grebe (Aechmophorus clarkii), and Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), a large passerine bird, in the family Corvidae. Several states have named a county in his honor: Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, and Washington. He also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Clarks River in western Kentucky is named for him.

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