John Ordway

John Ordway (* around 1775 in New Hampshire , † around 1817 in the United States) was a sergeant in the United States Army and an important participant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition , the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast.

He joined several other soldiers as a sergeant in the summer of 1803 in the Fort Kaskaskia garrison on the Ohio River for the Lewis and Clark expedition. John Ordway was one of the few educated men on the expedition, and was often the stand-in for Lewis and Clark in their absence.

His tasks included the distribution of equipment, the assignment of security services and the safekeeping of documents. In the first few months of the research expedition, soldiers disobeyed John Ordway several times.

When Clark explored the Yellowstone River and Lewis the Marias River on his way back from the Pacific in the summer of 1806 , Ordway led a group of ten across the Jefferson River back to the Missouri . Together with Sergeant Gass, he organized the transport of the boats that had been left behind on the Rocky Mountains the previous year over the difficult overland passage at the Missouri waterfalls.

During the expedition he wrote diaries which he sold to Lewis and Clark for $ 300. John Ordway, who had grown up with nine siblings, married after the expedition ended in New Hampshire and moved to 320 acres of land on the Missouri, which he had received as a reward for his services. He spent the last years of his life on the farm as a successful landowner.

Web links

• Sergeant John Ordway (English)