Fort Kaskaskia

This 1778 map shows the "Road from Kaskaskias Village to Fort Massac".

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

Quick Facts

Location:

14372 Park Road, Ellis Grove, IL 62241

Significance:

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped at Fort Kaskaskia in 1803 and recruited new expedition members here.

Designation:

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

MANAGED BY:

Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site

Amenities

5 listed

Picnic Table, Playground, Primitive Campsites, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Toilet - Vault/Composting

Lewis and Clark NHT Visitor Centers and Museums

Visitor Centers (shown in orange), High Potential Historic Sites (shown in black), and Pivotal Places (shown in green) along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

In the fall of 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark traveled up the Mississippi River gathering information, supplies, and recruits. Lewis arrived at Fort Kaskaskia on November 29, where he sought recruits with a range of skills, from hunting to carpentry to blacksmithing. 

Indigenous communities that were part of the Illinois Confederation had hunted and farmed these lands for millennia. French settlers established a trading post at Kaskaskia in 1703, near an existing Illiniwek village, and then built an earthworks fort in 1759. The French officially ceded the land to the British in 1763, but French-speaking people remained. After the American Revolutionary War, the British transferred the Illinois Country, including Kaskaskia, to the United States. Indigenous people living here had not consented to these land transfers between colonial powers.  

When Lewis arrived in 1803, the civilian population at Fort Kaskaskia was still largely French speaking, but the U.S. military controlled the fort. Many Shawnee, Delaware, and other Indigenous people lived nearby. 

Lewis recruited ten members of the Corps from Kaskaskia: John Boley, John Collins, John Dame, Patrick Gass, John Ordway, Ebenezer Tuttle, Peter Weiser, Isaac White, Alexander Hamilton Willard, and Richard Windsor. These men ranged in age from nineteen to thirty-two years old, and most were hired as laborers. Only two of the men were ranked higher than privates: Ordway was recruited as a sergeant. Gass, a carpenter, would be promoted from private to sergeant after the death of Charles Floyd. 

Lewis also hired French and Métis engagés. (Métis is a term for Indigenous people who also have French or other European heritage, and engagés was a common name for river navigators in the North American fur trade, many of whom spoke French.) These engagés operated the boats that ferried new recruits up the Mississippi River to Camp Dubois. Some of these men stayed with the expedition to Fort Mandan. Many of the men hired as engagés were of multicultural parentage, with French and Indigenous roots. 

About this article: This article is part of a series called “Pivotal Places: Stories from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.”