Last updated: December 18, 2023
Article
Return to the Cache Sites
NPS / K. Schlawin
Did the Corps of Discovery return to all four of their cache sites to collect the contents? Or are there supplies and goods still buried in Montana and Idaho waiting to be found? In this article, learn what we know from the journals (in the order visited during the return journey of 1806)
Cache Site 4 near the Clearwater River: This small cache pit contained several lead canisters of gun powder and some lead balls. Meriwether Lewis wrote on May 7, 1806,…a man of this lodge [Nez Perce] produced us two canisters of powder which he informed us he had found by means of his dog where they had been buried in a bottom near the river some miles above, they were the same which we had buryed in as we decended the river last fall…he had kept them safe and had honesty enough to return them to us… .” There’s no mention of the lead balls, however.
Cache Site 3 near Camp Fortunate: Here a variety of items were buried, including carrots of tobacco. William Clark wrote, on July 8, 1806: “…at which place we Sunk our Canoes & buried Some articles, as before mentioned the most of the Party with me being Chewers of Tobacco become So impatient to be chewing it that they Scercely gave themselves time to take their Saddles off their horses before they were off to the deposit. I found every article Safe, except a little damp.”
Regarding the condition of the sunken canoes, he tells us: “I examined them and found then all Safe except one of the largest which had a large hole in one Side & Split in bow.”
Cache Site 2 at the Upper and Lower Portage Camps of the Great Falls: Between these two sites, the Corps secured a wide variety of items, from books and papers, ammunition, Lewis’ desk, all the plant specimen collected since Fort Mandan, blunderbusses, flour, pork, and the keeled barge’s swivel gun. On July 13, 1806, they reached the site of the Upper Portage camp and discovered the spring floods of the Missouri had caused significant damage to the cache. Lewis wrote, “…found my bearskins entirly destroyed by the water, the river having risen so high that the water had penitrated. all my specimens of plants also lost. the Chart of the Missouri fortunately escaped. opened my trunks and boxes and exposed the articles to dry. found my papers damp and several articles damp. the stoper had come out of a phial of laudinum and the contents had run into the drawer and distroyed a gret part of my medicine in sucuh manner that it was past recovery.”
The next day, he continued, “Had the carriage wheels dug up found them in good order. the iron frame of the boat had not suffered materially… .” (The carriage wheels were created in 1805 to move the canoes overland around the Great Falls, and the iron frame was Lewis’ experimental boat that failed to float.)
On July 15, Lewis sent Hugh McNeal down to the Lower Portage Camp to inspect the cache there and to check on the condition of the white pirogue. We don’t learn about the condition of the boat until July 27 when Sergeant John Ordway wrote, “we halled out the white perogue out of the bushes and repaired hir. about 12 we loaded and Set out with the white perogue and the 5 canoes.” There is no mention about the condition of the goods in the lower cache, so we can assume that no news was good news.
Cache Site 1 at the Marias River: This pit contained a wide range of supplies, including ammunition, axes, flour, pork, salt, tin cups, traps, hammers, and animal pelts. Lewis and his reunited party would return to the mouth of the Marias on July 28, 1806, and what they found wasn’t good. When opening the principal cache pit, Lewis wrote, “…we found that the cash had caved in and most of the articles burried therin were injured; I sustained the loss of two very large bear skins which I much regret; most of the fur and baggage belonging to the men were injured. the gunpowder corn flour poark and salt had sustained but little injury the parched meal was spoiled or nearly so… “
A few smaller cache pits at the site were in “good order,” except three of Drouillard’s traps weren’t found. He continued, “…we passed immediately to the island in the entrance of Maria's river to launch the red perogue, but found her so much decayed that it was imposible with the means to repair her and therefore mearly took the nails and other ironwork's about her which might be or service to us and left her."
Items in good or salvageable condition were collected in the white pirogue or canoes and continued downstream with the Corps. Damaged goods were left behind and quickly decayed or were likely collected by local Native peoples.