Lewis in Cincinnati, Ohio

Photo:  Today’s Cincinnati, Ohio, by Jim Wark. Used with permission. 

After traveling nearly 500 miles down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, Meriwether Lewis and his limited crew docked at Cincinnati, Ohio to rest. Arriving on September 28, 1803, he wrote to William Clark, providing a brief update on their progress, and that he’d found two young men who he’d taken on “trial” – they are believed to have been George Shannon and John Colter.

During an approximate week’s stay, Lewis would also write to President Jefferson, stating how difficult the trip had been to that point, primarily due to historically low water levels. In this same letter Lewis informed the president he had sent the keelboat on downstream, and he planned to travel by land about 17 miles to Big Bone Lick in Kentucky to view the fossil bed there. He would catch up with the boat about 55 miles downstream from Cincinnati.

Cincinnati was founded in 1788 between the Little Miami and Great Miami Rivers on the north shore of the Ohio. It was chartered as a town on January 1, 1802 and had a population of less than 2,000 people when Lewis and his men rested there in 1803.

Today, Cincinnati is a metropolitan area of over 2.1 million people.