Lewis and Clark Camp Site: July 13, 1804

The guard sentenced here went on to a long frontier life. Alexander Willard, born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, in 1777, served the expedition as a blacksmith alongside John Shields. He married Eleanor McDonald on February 14, 1807. Lewis hired him in 1808 as government blacksmith to the Sauk and Meskwaki, and in 1809 he was appointed to the same post for the Delawares and Shawnees. He served in the War of 1812, raised twelve children and lived for many years in Platteville, Wisconsin. He died at Franklin, Sacramento County, California, on March 6, 1865, aged 87.

What the plaque says

Lewis and Clark Campsite July 13, 1804 On this day the explorers passed along this stretch of the Missouri River and camped a few miles north of here on the Nebraska side. The tranquil weather recorded by Clark in his journal for July 13 was in sharp contrast with violent storms the night before. Two notable incidents occurred on July 12. Private Alexander Willard was court-martialed for falling asleep on guard duty and sentenced to receive "one hundred lashes on his bear back, at four different times in equal propation." Captain Clark went a short distance up the Nemaha River, where he "observed artifical mounds (or as I may more Justly term Graves) which to me is a Strong indication of this Country being once Thickly Settled." This site is a prehistoric Oto village and cemetery. Near the mouth of the Nemaha River, Clark "observed Some Indian marks, went to the rock which jutted over the water and marked my name & the day of the month & year." No evi- dence of his inscription can be found today. Nebraska State Historical Society National Park Service

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Indian Cave State Park — 14 mi
  Wooded Missouri River bluffs in the old Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation, with carvings of animals cut into a sandstone shelter, the ghost town of St. Deroin and miles of trail.
• Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum — 17 mi
  The surviving part of an 1846 Presbyterian mission school near Highland, built largely with the tribes' own annuity money and returned to the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska in 2021. Closed during remodeling.
• Brownville — 27 mi
  A Missouri River town of 1854 that bet on a railroad and lost, kept its arts through the decline, and now has Nebraska's oldest repertory theatre and a 1932 steam dredge on the bank.

More markers nearby

• Missouri River — steps away
• Point of Beginning of the Public Land Surveys of Sixth Principal Meridian — 6.1 mi
• Nemaha River Falls — 9.5 mi
• First Oil Well — 13 mi