“Spirit Mound”

¼ mile

This hill was visited by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and seven other members of the famous expedition on August 25, 1804, after a four hour walk from the Missouri River. They had been attracted to it by Indian legends that evil spirits in human form lived there. Reportedly, the little devils were eighteen inches high with large heads and were armed with arrows that could kill at great distance.

From the top, according to Clark’s journal, the men enjoyed ‘a most butiful landscape; numerous herds of buffalo were seen feeding in various directions.' The explorers decided correctly that the mound was a product of nature and not of man, even though it was some distance from other hills. Heat and thirst soon drove them to the Vermillion River, where they found water and ‘delisious froot such as grapes, plumbs, and blue currents.' They reached the Missouri at sunset. Journeying onward, the members of the expedition spent the first winter in North Dakota among the Mandan Indians, the next on the Pacific coast, and then turned homeward, repassing this area in 1806 as they hurried down stream to St. Louis. They had explored thousands of miles of new country, collected valuable data on plant and animal life, stimulated interest in the Louisiana Territory and the Oregon Country, and added to the legends and heroes of American history.”

Clay County, 19 - 8 miles north of Vermillion (1988)