Chapter 26
Two Roads Home
Travelers’ Rest, Montana, to the Yellowstone River
Pompeys Pillar is a sandstone butte beside the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana. On 25 July 1806 Clark climbed it, named it “Pompy’s Tower” after Sacagawea’s son, and carved his name and the date beside Native carvings of animals. His signature is the only mark of the expedition that can still be seen along its route.
3 July 1806
At Travelers’ Rest, the captains split the Corps in two, to explore more country on the way home. Lewis will take a small group straight east over the mountains to the Great Falls, and then ride north to explore the Marias River. Clark will take the rest, with Sacagawea and Pomp, south to the Three Forks, and then across to the Yellowstone River and down it to the Missouri.
It is a risky plan. The groups will be out of touch for weeks, in country where they could run into trouble. Lewis writes: “I took leave of my worthy friend and companion Capt. Clark and the party that accompanyed him. I could not avoid feeling much concern on this occasion although I hoped this seperation was only momentary.”
13 July 1806
Clark’s party picks up the canoes they left at Camp Fortunate and floats down the Jefferson to the Three Forks. Then they have to cross the mountains to reach the Yellowstone, in country Sacagawea knew as a girl.
On 13 July Clark writes that “the Indian woman who has been of great service to me as a pilot through this country recommends a gap in the mountain more South which I shall cross.” Clark follows her advice. The gap she points out is the one known today as Bozeman Pass, where a highway and a railway cross the mountains now.
July 1806
On the Yellowstone, Clark’s men build two canoes out of cottonwood trees, lash them together, and float downstream. Some of their horses are stolen in the night; Clark suspects the Crow.
The mosquitoes are so bad that the men can hardly sleep, eat or shoot straight. Clark writes that Pomp “has been so much bitten by the Musquetors that his face is much puffed up & Swelled.” Pomp is now seventeen months old, and he has been travelling for most of his life.
25 July 1806
On 25 July Clark comes to a great rock of pale sandstone standing alone beside the river. He climbs it. “From it’s top,” he writes, he “had a most extensive view in every direction.” He decides to name it “Pompy’s Tower,” after Sacagawea’s son. Today it is called Pompeys Pillar.
Clark finds that others have been here long before him: “The nativs have ingraved on the face of this rock the figures of animals &c. near which I marked my name and the day of the month & year.”
His signature, “Wm Clark July 25 1806,” is still there, next to the older Native carvings. It is the only mark the expedition left that can still be seen along its route today.