William Clark
William Clark
William Clark (1770–1838) was an American explorer, soldier and public official who co-led the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Meriwether Lewis from 1804 to 1806. Born in Virginia and raised partly on the Kentucky frontier, he was the younger brother of Revolutionary War general George Rogers Clark and served as an Army officer, with Lewis for a time under his command. In 1803 Lewis invited him to share leadership of the Corps of Discovery, sent by President Thomas Jefferson to survey the Louisiana Purchase and seek a route west. As the expedition's chief mapmaker, Clark charted the route up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia River to the Pacific, reached in November 1805. His maps reshaped American knowledge of the West, and he later served as governor of the Missouri Territory and for years as superintendent of Indian affairs in St. Louis.
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Seeking a Passage to the Pacific
For centuries explorers sought a waterway across or around North America to the Pacific. Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River, Henry Hudson explored the river and bay that bear his name, and James Cook searched the Arctic coast from the Pacific side. Sent by Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the continent overland, and Roald Amundsen became the first to sail the Northwest Passage.
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