Omaha daily bee., 1885-07-06
THE ORIGINAL COUNCIL BLUFFS.
Fort Calhoun The Place Where Levi
and Clarke Conferred with The
Indians,
Tho Trip from Bellevue to the Latter
Point-The "Maba" Tribe and
the Death and Burial of
Blackbird.

Blsckbird.
Written for The BEE.
NO. w.
My last letter left the Lewis and
Clarke party at the camp east of the fall
grounds or thereabouts, which place they
left July 20, 1904, and crossed I'VE the
Missouri to the bluff on the east aide,
which was the frat high land that ap
preached the river since they left the
Ncsouks, now the Nodowsy, which
empties into the Missouri on the Iowa
side away below the mouth of the Platte.
Passing a creek which they named Knob
creek from the many bold knobs, IN the
north side Of the river, they reached q
point eleven miles from their last camp.
On tho Goth they moved on, passing
the mouth of the Boyer, and stopped fol
dinner under q shade heal the high land
on the south side. "Above this high
land" they wrote, ''are observed the
traces of o great hurricane which passed
the river obliquely from northwest to
southeast, and tore up large trees, some
of which were perfectly sound and four
feet In diameter, and were snapped of
near the ground" This statement proves
that tornadoes and cyclones are not insti-
tutions Of recent growth; and the fact
that the cyclone snapped off trees four
feet through the base proves that the de-
structtve power and agencies OF the
cylones Of eighty years ago are fully up
to, IL not superior, In force and intensity
to their SUCCESSORS. These fearful ION.
v~ulslons,
TERsE c%ATAPULTY OF NATURE
broken loose, seem to be confined to no
age or section, and to be no respectors of
animate or inanimate life. A few years
ago a citizen of Vermont said to the
writer, "your tornados in the west are an
objection to your climate" $50 they
are to yours" 1 replied, ''for I have read
accounts of them occurring In New Eng
land, the middle and southern States"
he did not remember them. Not three
weeks afterwards q tornado struck his
premises, moved his house from Its foun-
dalton, utterly demolished all his out
buildings and killed several head of
cattle and sheep. Meeting him a few
days afterwards he said he had come to
the conclusion that no section of the
country could claim q monopoly of hurri-
canes or exemption from them. One can
recall the fearful cyclone that passed
through Mlssiasippi two or three years
ago, 30 destructive to life and property,
and one also In Alabama. The most ter.
tible tornado of which the writer aver
read swept down through New Hamp-
shire and across Massachusetts more than
thirty years ago, leaving a wide swsth of
cutting right through forests
Of heavy timber, laying the trees as COM
as the mower lays the grass. II
witnessed some of the devastation
wrought by that visitation of the powers
# the air. And is there any surety that
heBe sections of the country, which have
lot been the vlctims of these destructive
shall always escape their fury?
The same atmospheric conditions which
ave caused thesa wild outbreaks of ma.
ure In other places, may yet let loose
tese unclaimed tigers of the air in re.
ions they have not hitherto trespassed.
That night the party camped On the
asst side of the river having made ten
niles that day. The next morning they
moved three miles and a half to a point
the west side, and went into camp
o await the arrival Of the Otoes and
Their tribes to whom they had sent mes.
to invite the Indians to meet
hem. This is the place where the
lmous council was held by Lewis and
lark with those Indians, on the Sd of
1904, which was down on all the
laps fifty years ago as
COUNCIL ~BLUFFs,"
nd indicated by q large black spot, sew.
hundred Leagues beyond the borders
civilization. 1t was then literally in
he wilderness, now it Is in the heart of
About the year 1920,
Military post was established there and
AIMED Fort Calhoun, from the then Sec
etary of war, John Q. Calhoun.
1t has sometimes been claimed that
MS council was held on the east side of
,e river, and the writer found 1t stated
l n encyclopedia In the congressional
brary, In giving a sketch of the city of
ouncil Bluffs, that 1t took It's name from {
,e fact that Lewis and Clark held their
,uncil with the Indians on the site
here the city now stands, and to which d,
ley gave the name of "Councll Bluffs" l
hts ID shown to be entirely erroneous, s
II the Lewis and Clark party did not !
nd on the east bank of the river, be- !
their camp opposite Bellevue and
10 point where the bluffs first approach .
10 river on the same side, some distance g
,rth of the present city of Council /
luffs. |,
Their encampment at Calhoun must !;
I'VE been on the second bench Of land, =
,low where the Elan Clark flour mill Q
ands, as the journal speaks of Its being G
,ar the end of a woody ridge, which n
parates the lower from the higher prai. b
which latter, the site of the present b
WIN, extends back about a mile to an {,
her elevation of about eighty or ninety o
~ uhJch Ia tho hIlIv wanna IN tho raar !.