Site of Fort Clatsop - Astoria, Oregon - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

"Left here 1.5 m. on a graveled road to the SITE OF FORT CLATSOP, the winter encampment of the Lewis and Clark party in 1805-6. Now overgrown with evergreens, the site is designated by a flagpole set in concrete and is marked by a bronze plaque. The broad stump that served Lewis as a writing desk has decayed. Koboway, the Clatsop chief to whom the fort was given, retired to his lodge leaving the white men s house to fall to ruin. On December 7, 1805, Clark recorded: "...after breakfast I delayed about half an hour before York Came up, then proceeded around this Bay which I call (have taken the liberty of calling) Meriwethers Bay the Chrisitan name of Capt. Lewis who no doubt was the 1st. white man who ever Surveyed this Bay [Clark was mistaken about this], we assended a river which falls in on the South Side of this Bay 3 miles to the first point of high land on the West Side, the place Capt Lewis had viewed and formed in a thick groth of pine about 200 yards from the river, this situation is on a rise about 30 feet higher than the high tides leave and thickly Covered with lofty pine. This is certainly the most eligable Situation for our purposes of any in its neighbourhood."
On December 8 the whole party gathered at the site selected by Lewis on the Netul River and made camp. Within a short time trees were felled and rude huts erected around an open square. Some of the men were dispatched to the Pacific to make salt from sea water, others were ordered to hunt, and the remainder working against time and weather, completed the shelters sufficiently to enable the party to move in by Christmas. On Christmas Day Clark wrote: "at day light this morning we we [re] awoke by the discharge of the fire armts] of all our party & a Selute, Shouts and a Song which the whole party joined in under our windows, after which they retiree to their rooms were chearfull all the morning, after brackfast we divided our Tobacco which amounted to 12 carrots one half of which we gave to the men o: the party who used tobacco, and to those who doe not use it we make a present of a handkerchief, The Indians leave us in the evening all the party Snugly fixed in their huts. I reeved a prestelnt of Cap* L. of a fleece hosrie [hosiery] Shirt Draws and Socks, a pair Mockersons of white weazils tails of the Indian woman & some black root of the Indians before their departure....The day proved Showerey wet and disagreeable. "we would have Spent this day the nativity of Christ in feasting had we any thing either to raise our Sperits or even gratify our appetites, our Diner concisted of pore Elk, so much Spoiled that we eate it thro mear necessity." According to Gass, they were without salt to season even that.
On the 26th the rain continued. Clark says: "we dry our wet articles and have the blankets fleed, The flees are so troublesom that I have slept but little for 2 night past and we have regularly to kill them out of our blankets every day for several past." (Fleas were left by the Indians on each visit.) On the 27th in the Journals occurs the entry: "Musquetors troublesom."
On the 29th the natives brought word that a whale had floundered on theshore some distance south, and that their people were collecting fat from it. Although it was planned to start immediately to the place to obtain blubber, severe storms delayed the trip until early in January. At that time Sacajawea made her one recorded plea in her own interests; Clark wrote: "She observed that She had traveled a long way with us to See the great waters, and that now monstrous fish was also to be Seen, She though it verry hard She could not be permitted to See either (She had never yet been to the Ocian)." She was permitted to go with the men, carrying her baby on her back.
Under the leadership of Clark the small party struggled around the headlands to the Tillamook country, 35 miles south of Fort Clatsop. Well-laden with blubber, they returned to the fort. During the late winter and early spring Sacajawea was busy preparing moccasins and suits of buckskin for the explorers.
Clark noted: "With the party of Clatsops who visited us last was a man of much lighter Coloured than the nativs are generaly, he was freckled with long duskey red hair, about 25 years of age, and must Certainly be half white at least, this man appeared to understand more of the English language than the others of his party, but did not Speak a word of English, he possessed all the habits of the indians." In Adventures on the Columbia (1832) Ross Cox describes such a man as the son of a sailor who had deserted here from an English ship. He was said to have had the words "Jack Ramsey" tattooed on his arm. "Poor Jack was fond of his father s countrymen," Ross says, "and had the decency to wear trousers whenever he came to the fort [Astoria]. We therefore made a collection of old clothes for his use; sufficient to last him many years." The man was otherwise accounted for by other early visitors; the Indians told them of several parties of white men who had landed on the Oregon coast in the 18th century and of a red-haired sailor who was washed ashore about 1760.
The Clatsops became such frequent visitors at the fort that upon its completion Clark noted "...at Sun set we let the nativs know that our Custom will be in future, to Shut the gates at Sun Set at which time all Indians must go out of the fort and not return into it untill next morning after Sunrise at which time the gates will be opened, those of the Warciacum Nation who are very fo[r]ward left the houses with reluctianc." In view of the Indians differing conceptions of private property, this seems to have been an expedient ruling on the part of the explorers.
By March the leaders believed that the mountain snows would have melted, and the winter quarters could be abandoned. On March 23 Clark reported: "loaded our canoes & at 1 P. M. left Fort Clatsop on our homeward journey, at this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Deer. 1805 to this day and have lived as we had any right to expect, and we can say that we were never one day without 3 meals of some kind a day either pore Elk meat or roots..."
Those who write of the Lewis and Clark expedition are apt to stress the discomforts and dangers the party experienced, forgetting that these were the price, fully anticipated and gladly paid, of fulfilling a dream centuries old that of finding a central route across North America." -The Oregon Trail, 1939

Today, the site is part of Lewis & Clark National Historic park. On the site stands a replica of the original Fort Clatsop. Nearby is an interpretive center featuring a exhibits, films and a gift shop.