Private Whitehouse’s Frostbitten Feet

Painting by Tom Kozar. Harpers Ferry Center Commissioned Art Collection. Public Domain.

Snow, wind-chilled winter weather always made survival difficult for the expedition, and January 14, 1805, was no exception. Even though most of the crew hunkered down at Fort Mandan in present-day Washburn, North Dakota, on this day, Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor led a crew of five men out with some hunters from the Mandan Tribe for an extended hunting trip. While they initially planned to be out for several days building up bounty, the first day ended disastrously for one. Private Joseph Whitehouse, a Virginia native who served in the First Squad under Sgt. Pryor, suffered severe frostbite in his feet. In his journal he wrote,

“Some Snow fell this morning. 6 more hunters went out to join the rest a nomber of the natives went out also, in the evening one of the hunters that went out first Came to the fort, he informed us that they had killed one buffaloe a wolf & 2 porkapines, & I got my feet So froze that I could not walk to the fort.”

To get Private Whitehouse back safely to Fort Mandan, Corps of Discovery member George Shannon returned from the hunting party to inform the rest of the crew that they would need a horse to carry him since he could not walk.

Fortunately, Private Whitehouse’s feet recovered from their frozen state, and he continued to serve as a valuable and conscientious crew member in the Corps of Discovery. He worked as the chief tailor for the crew, mending worn-out clothing and creating new pieces out of animal skins, an indispensable role for a years-long expedition in which clothing was constantly getting torn and tattered.

Find out more about the crew’s day on January 14, 1805, check out the journals here on University of Nebraska, Lincoln's Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition site.

Learn more about Private Joseph Whitehouse on our Partner's website, Discovering Lewis and Clark.