George Shannon ( explorer ) George Shannon ( 1785 – 1836 ) , the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition ( not counting the infant Jean Baptiste Charbonneau and Lewis ' s dog Seaman ) , was born in Pennsylvania . He joined the Corps of Discovery in August 1803 , as one of the three men ( and Seaman ) from Pittsburgh recruited by Lewis as he was waiting for the completion of the voyage ' s vessels in the city . During the trip , Shannon got lost on two occasions . On August 26 , 1804 , he was sent to retrieve two pack horses ; he was separated from the party for sixteen days and nearly starved , as he went without food for twelve days except for some grapes and rabbits . At first he thought he was behind the expedition , so he sped up thinking he could catch up . Then , getting hungry , he went downstream to look for a trading party he could stay with . Finally John Colter was sent to find him . Shannon got lost again August 6 , 1805 , when the expedition was at the Three Forks . He was dispatched up a fork the party had named Wisdom ( the middle fork was named Jefferson and the placid fork , Philanthropy ) . He rejoined the party after three days by backtracking to the forks and following the trail of the others . In 1807 he was with a party led by Nathaniel Pryor that was attempting to return the Mandan chief Sheheke to his people . He was wounded in an encounter with the Arikaras and lost a leg ; he would eventually receive a government pension . In 1810 he assisted in Nicholas Biddle ' s history of the expedition . Later , Clark asked him to join a fur trading enterprise , but Shannon chose to study law instead . By 1818 he had a law practice in Lexington , Kentucky , and later ran for senator from Missouri . He was buried in Palmyra , Missouri . Legacy . Shannon County , Missouri is named after George Shannon . In 2001 , a number of northeastern Nebraska communities formed Shannon Trail Promoters , with the goal of increasing tourism in the forthcoming bicentennial year of the Lewis and Clark Expedition . The organization commissioned thirteen wooden chainsaw sculptures of Shannon , which were placed in participating communities along a Shannon Trail . Sixteen wayside markers recounting aspects of Shannon ' s career were also placed along the trail , which runs through the region in which Shannon is thought to have wandered during his 1804 separation from the expedition . In keeping with Shannon ' s claim to fame , a scavenger hunt was held , with tourists urged to " Find Private Shannon " by visiting all sixteen markers . The organization continues to stage Shannon - themed events . In 2007 , when a new bridge was under construction to carry U . S . Highway 81 across the Missouri River from Knox County , Nebraska to Yankton , South Dakota , one of the names proposed for it was the Private Shannon Bridge . In an online poll , the name was selected by a plurality of those responding , garnering 26 % of the votes . However , the Yankton - based committee responsible for naming the bridge elected to call it the Yankton Discovery Bridge , a choice that did not sit well with Nebraskans . The " Yankton " was eventually dropped from the name , and the bridge is now known as the Discovery Bridge . Shannon is the subject of poet Campbell McGrath ' s 2009 work " Shannon : A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition " . References . < references >