Journals of the
Lewis & Clark Expedition

1. Hugh Heney, or Hené, was supposedly an employee of Régis Loisel on the Missouri from 1800; in 1804 he entered the service of the North West Company. At some point he traded with the Minniconjou Sioux near the mouth of Cheyenne River in South Dakota; the captains questioned him extensively about this tribe. They later sought his aid in persuading Teton Sioux chiefs to go to Washington. Wallace, 455–56, gives a sketch of a man supposed to be the Heney known to Lewis and Clark, but the birth date given (1789) seems incompatible with other information about him. Coues (NLEH), 1:424 n. 1, 425, 526; Masson, 1:307–9; Abel (TN), 24–25 nn. 57 and 59, 26, 31, 231–34; Nasatir (BLC), 1:112–14, 2:622, 628, 636; Clark to Heney, July 20, 1806, Jackson (LLC), 1:309–13. (back)

2. The name seems to have been squeezed into this space later. (back)

3. A space was left here for a description of the root that was never filled in. Clark describes its use from information of Heney on February 28, 1805. Lewis also gives a detailed account of its uses and application in a letter to Jefferson and it is mentioned in a list of goods being returned from Fort Mandan (see April 3, 1805). Jackson (LLC), 1:220–21. It is Echinacea angustifolia DC. var. angustifolia, narrow leaf purple coneflower, a plant used for many ailments including toothache, snakebites, other venomous bites and stings, and several poisonous conditions. Gilmore (UPI), 79; Foster; Cutright (LCPN), 122. Clark describes its use in detail on February 28, 1805. (back)

4. Larocque calls him "Budge." He could speak the Hidatsa language well, an indication that he had been to their villages before. This gave him an advantage in trading over Larocque, whose journal indicates that the two were more concerned with competing with each other than with spreading British influence among the Indians, as Lewis and Clark may have feared. Wood & Thiessen, 144, 144 n. 23. (back)

5. Including Gass, according to Gass. (back)

6. Including Hugh Heney, François-Antoine Larocque, and George Budge. Only these three are mentioned by Clark; Gass counts only three, as well. Heney and Larocque delivered a letter from Charles Chaboillez, North West Company factor on the Assiniboine River. See Clark's entries for October 26, November 27, and this date. (back)

7. McKeehan's note: "The North West Company was first formed in the winter of 1783–4, by the merchants of Canada engaged in the fur trade, uniting their interest. The concern was divided into sixteen shares, without any capital being deposited; each party furnishing his proportion of the articles necessary for carrying on the trade. After a severe struggle and rival competition with others engaged in the trade, in the year 1787 more partners were admitted, the shares extended to twenty and the establishment, which was no more than an association of commercial men agreeing among themselves to carry on the fur trade, founded on a more solid basis.

"This and Hudson's Bay Company, have engrossed and carry on almost the whole of the fur trade in that extensive country, situated between Hudson's Bay, the Rocky mountains, and that high tract of country, west of lake Superior, which seperates the southern from the northern waters: and have factories, forts and trading establishments on the Winnipic, Assiniboin, Sturgeon, Saskatchiwine, Elk, and most of the other great lakes and rivers, which communicate with or discharge themselves into Hudson's Bay, and the North sea. It is said some change has since taken place in the establishment of the North West Company."

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