Patrick Gass
Patrick Gass (born June 12, 1771 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † April 2, 1870 in Wellsburg, West Virginia ) was a sergeant in the United States Army and an important member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition .
Life
Gass joined the army in 1789 and served in the summer of 1803 in the garrison of Kaskaskia in the Illinois Territory on the Ohio River under Captain Russell Bissel . He volunteered to participate in Lewis and Clark's planned expedition. His boss didn't want to let one of his best men go. Meriwether Lewis moved Gass in anyway on an order from Secretary of War Henry Dearborn .
Originally, Gass, as a good boatman, was only supposed to accompany the expedition up to the winter quarters in 1804/1805. After the death of Charles Floyd on August 20, 1804, he was promoted to sergeant and accompanied the expedition as a squad leader to the end. As a carpenter , he was instrumental in building canoes and the three winter shelters at Camp Wood , Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop .
In the summer of 1806, when the expedition split up into several groups on the way back to the Missouri River , Gass was assigned the task of transporting the boats with his people overland, past the great waterfalls of the Missouri , which had been left behind the year before .
Gass' diaries were the first accounts of the entire Lewis and Clark Expedition published in early 1807.
Patrick Gass died in West Virginia at the age of 98.
Web links
- Literature by and about Patrick Gass in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gass, Patrick |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American soldier and explorer, member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1771 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 2, 1870 |
| Place of death | Wellsburg, West Virginia , USA |