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| PATRICK GASS "THE LAST MAN OF THE CORPS OF VOLUNTEERS OF
NORTHWESTERN DISCOVERY (You are here) |
AUTHOR: Eugene Gass Painter (great grandson of
Patrick Gass)
and Dale Clark -
The Corps of Volunteers of North Western Discovery were 33 ordinary
people who did ordinary things in an extra ordinary way to make this
one of the most successful expeditions of our time. One of the extra
ordinary members of the group was the rough and tumble Patrick Gass
whose background, skills and leadership abilities made him a key
player in the success of the Corps.
Patrick McLene Gass of Irish and Scotch decent was born at Falling
Springs, near present day Chambersburg, Cumberland County,
Pennsylvania, on 12 June 1771. Patrick’s father Benjamin operated a
fulling mill (a mill for the process of shrinking and thickening
woolen fabric by application of moisture, heat, friction and
pressure to cause the fibers to felt.)
The Gass family moved to Maryland in 1775 where Patrick was within
earshot of the Revolutionary War. From 1777 to 1780. Patrick lived
with his grandparents. In 1780 the family was again on the move
west. After several stops for short periods of time, they finally
settled at Catfish Camp near present day Washington, Pennsylvania,
where the family farmed and operated a fulling mill. In 1792, Patrick’s father was drafted into the army to defend
settlers from attacking Indians; Patrick served in his father’s
place. At age 21 Patrick was in Captain Caton’s Company of Rangers.
The Rangers were to protect the settlers from raiding bands of
Indians from the Ohio country. Following his discharge in 1793,
Patrick joined a group of flatboat men and traveled down to New
Orleans, returning to Philadelphia by way of Cuba.
In 1794, Patrick was in Mercersbury, Pennsylvania, where he
apprenticed himself as a carpenter. Here he worked on a house owned
by James Buchanan, Senior. Buchanan’s son James Jr. (who was three
at the time) would become the fifteenth President of the United
States. Patrick worked as a carpenter until 1799 when the threat of
conflict appeared with France. He enlisted in the army under General
Alexander Hamilton. After serving under several commanders, Patrick
came under the command of Captain Russell Bissell on the Tennessee
River, and in 1801 this contingent joined the artillery company at
Fort Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory.
Patrick’s military records show that he was 5 foot 7 inches tall with dark
hair and complexion; his eyes were gray, and his occupation was a
carpenter. Family oral tradition indicates he was broad-chested and
heavy limbed, yet lean and very quick. He was a very active walker who
enjoyed his tobacco and liquor. It has been said that his language was
better suited for a campfire than the parlor. He was an interesting
individual.
In the fall of 1803, Captains Lewis and Clark came down the Ohio River
and stopped at Fort Kaskaskaia and called for volunteers for their
overland expedition through unknown lands to the Pacific Ocean. They
found twelve candidates from the troops there. More men volunteered here
than any other place. One of these volunteers was Captain Bissell’s
carpenter, Patrick Gass. Captain Bissell refused to release Gass because
he was not only a good soldier but also a first rate carpenter.
Lewis asked the men who could write to keep journals. Patrick Gass was
one of the seven known journal keepers that included Lewis, Clark,
Ordway, Floyd, Whitehouse, and Frazer. Pryor and Willard may have also
kept journals, but we do not have them today. Patrick had only 19 days
of formal education and by his own admission "never learned to read,
write, and cipher till he had come of age." Gass’s journal has provided
us with more details about some activities of the Expedition than did
the other journals. Gass was a keen observer, and since he was a
carpenter, he provided details on construction of earth lodges and
canoes of the native people. On 30 March 1806 Gass wrote of the Skillute,
"The native of this country ought to have the credit of making the
finest canoes, perhaps in the world, both to service and beauty; they
are no less expert in working them when made." Gass had his journal of
the expedition published just six months after the Corps returned to St.
Louis and seven years before Lewis’s and Clark’s were published. In
David MeKeehan’s prospectus for Patrick Gass’s journal in the Pittsburgh
Gazette, March 1807 the name "Corps of Volunteers for North Western
Discovery’ was shortened to "The Corps of Discovery," and this term has
been used ever since.
On 14 May 1804 when the Corps headed up the Missouri River, Patrick Gass
was thirty-three years old, making him among the oldest of the group.
Captain Clark was ten months older than Gass; and John Shields,
blacksmith/gunsmith, was two years older than Gass. The senior member
was French/Canadian Touussaint Charbonneau, husband of Sacagawea, who
was in his mid thirties and joined the party at the Mandan Village.
Gass proved his worth to the Corps from the very beginning. With his
woodworking skills he oversaw the construction of
all the winter forts.
He made early modifications on the keelboat and was in charge of hewing
the dugout canoes at Mandan (North Dakota), White Bear Island (Montana),
and Canoe Camp (Idaho). He designed and built the wagons to make the 18
mile portage overland at Great Falls. Gass assisted Captain Lewis in the
assembly of the "experiment," the iron boat frame that failed due to the
lack of proper material to seal the seams of the hides used to cover it.
Gass certainly possessed people skills also.
On 20 August 1804, Sergeant
Charles Floyd died (the only member of the Corps to die). The Captains
let the men elect his replacement, and on
22 August 1804 Patrick Gass
was elected the new Sergeant with 19 votes.
On 3 July 1806 on the return trip, Lewis and Clark divided the party
into three groups. Clark took a detachment and explored down the
Yellowstone River. Lewis took a detachment over the mountains and
divided it into two groups. Lewis took three men and traveled up the
Maria River to establish the northern boundary of the Louisiana
Purchase. Gass was in command of the rest of the Corps and traveled down
the Missouri to join with Lewis and Clark on the lower Missouri. On 11
August 1806, Lewis took Pierre Cruzatte, the one-eyed near-sighted
fiddle player hunting with him. Pierre accidentally shot the Captain.
The ball hit no bones, but passed through the left buttock a few inches
below the hip joint and cut across the right buttock about the depth of
the ball causing a very painful wound. Gass was called upon to help the
Captain dress the wound. On 12 August 1806, Captain Clark rejoined the
group.
Upon the return of the Corps of Discovery to St. Louis 23 September
1806, Gass was dispatched with a letter for George Rogers Clark, Captain
Clark’s Brother on the Falls of the Ohio. The letter was published in
the Frankfort, Kentucky Palladium on 9 October 1806 announcing to the
nation the safe return of the Corps of Discovery.
Patrick returned to Wellsburg, West Virginia, (then Virginia) after the
expedition and worked at various jobs. Gass re-enlisted in the Army and
fought in the War of 1812. In September 1813 at Fort Independence on the
Mississippi, Territory of Missouri, Gass lost his left eye in an
accident while felling a tree according to army records. In 1814, he
fought in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane near Niagara Falls and took part in
the charge by 300 Americans to capture a key British artillery battery.
Gass was discharged from the Army with a full pension as a result of the
accident. He received $96 a year. Gass once again returned to Wellsburg.
In the fall of 1829, Gass was boarding with John Hamilton, known as
"Judge," who was probably a justice of the peace. Hamilton’s daughter
Maria who was about 16 was living at home. She looked upon Patrick as
being a romantic figure. The two fell in love and married 1 March 1831.
Gass was now 60 years old.
Patrick saved his money and in a short time was able to purchase a tract
of hillside land on Pierce’s Run about six miles from Wellsburg. Here he
erected a log home and began to farm. Patrick and Maria had seven
children. The first died in infancy in 1832. Late in 1846 an outbreak of
measles struck the area of Wellsburg. All the Gass children were
stricken as well as Maria. The children recovered, but Maria did not.
She died on 16 February 1847 at the age of thirty-six.
Patrick, now seventy-five, was left with six young children. The
youngest, Rachel, was only 11 months. Patrick tried to provide for the
young family, but over the next few years they were all placed with
families in the area. According to the family, Patrick was a devoted
father and grandfather and was living with his daughter Annie when he
died on 20 April 1870, fourteen months short of his 100th birthday. Hew
was the last member of the Corp to die. He even survived Jean Baptist
Charbonneau (Sacagawea’s baby) by four years.
Patrick Gass was born before the Revolutionary War and lived to see the
War of 1812, Mexican War, and the Civil War. He lived to see the country
grow from thirteen colonies to thirty-eight states. He saw the nation
bridged by a railroad, and he voted for eighteen presidents from
Washington to Grant. He truly is a man to be remembered.
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