There’s a plethora of early maps of Portland, many of which I’ve recently included and cataloged here for reference. One of those maps I’d never seen before recently, oddly, is this sketch-map made by William Clark (yes, he of Lewis & Clark expedition fame) from April 3, 1806, featuring a sketch of the Multnomah River, “given by several different Tribes of Indians near its entrance into the Columbia.” The original link comes from this Oregon Encyclopedia article on the Wapato (Wappato) Valley Indians, found whilst researching native settlements in Portland, notably those around the important confluence of the Willamette and Columbia but getting a feel for pre-settlement use of waterways. The map is found in Volume Four of the Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806, which constitutes the return trip of the Corps of Discovery from Fort Clatsop on the Oregon Coast back towards the east. The entry and fold-out map includes a remarkable amount of information including natural and hydrological features, as well as references to many of the tribes as alluded to in the title.
It’s amazing to see the detail of the map and density of information, in what I assume was field drawn, probably in a canoe, fending off bears while simultaneously collecting plant samples. I jest, but I’m constantly amazed at the ability of early explorers to represent places quickly and with much For me, at least, it was much easier to conceptualize graphically if you rotate the map so north is facing up, so the subsequent enlargements flip this over. This enlarged view shows the key features at the confluence, perhaps not drawn to scale, but remarkably accurate, including to the east, both the Washougal River (noted as Teal) and the Sandy River (noted as the Quick Sand). There are also notes on the various encampments on river banks, such as the Nechacolee and Nechacokee around Blue Lake in Portland on the south bank, Shoto up around modern day Vancouver Lake to the north and many more smaller encampments of the local Multnomah and Kathlamet tribes. To the west, around Wappato Island (modern day Sauvie Island) which was home to Multnomah, Clannahqueh, Cathlahcommahtup and others on Sauvie Island on the Columbia River, and around the other side of the island, known as the Multnomah Channel. See this additional post from the Oregon Encyclopedia for Lewis & Clark’s estimate of the Portland Basin Chinookian Village tribal populations here as well for more detail.
The same zone taken from a Google Earth image shows the general location of and features. The fidelity of the geography is a bit off (it’s a sketch map) but it’s all there.
Further south, the geography is a bit more sparse, but does include the upriver span of the Willamette (called here the ‘Multnomah River’) and it’s connection to the Clackamas River (heading east) including encampments of Clackamas along that river, and perhaps mis-estimating a bit how far away Mt. Jefferson actually was (see below)… and ‘The Falls’ which denotes Willamette Falls, which was an important settlements along this important confluence, and Charcowah, and Cushhooks near the Falls….
The same view of current day area, again with a bit of misalignment of the rivers, which probably comes from the map being adapted from a drawing done by a local tribal elder, but the general features there.
The text supplements the map somewhat, with stories of meeting a group of Shah-ha-la Nation and showing them the Multnomah:
“we readily prevailed on them to give us a sketch of this river which they drew on a Mat with a coal, it appeared that this river which they call Mult-nó-mah discharged itself behind the Island we call the image canoe island, as we had left this island to the south in decending & assending the river we had never seen it. they informed us that it was a large river and runs a considerable distance to the south between the Mountains.”
Clark takes a party to explore, and encounters huts from various tribes, along with harvesting of wappato and roots via canoes along the rivers, and found the hidden entrance to the Willamette (which he refers to as the Multnomah River, along with the tribes on Wappato Island and noted the depth of the. He mentions that he “…can plainly see Mt. Jefferson” which may allude to it’s proximity on the one map. As he continued to explore he mentions being “satisfyed of the size and magnitude of this great river which must water that vast tract of Country between the western range of mountains and those on the sea coast and as far S. as the Waters of Callifonia…” which if not totally true, does allude to the size of the Willamette drainage in at least draining a fair portion of NW Oregon. He continues by visiting a long house, and learns the constant refrain of deaths from small pox and starvation. He asks for a map of the area and the people from one of the elders. “I provailed on an old man to draw me a sketch of the Multnomar River and give me the names of the nations resideing on it which he readiliy done, and gave me the names of 4 nations who reside on this river two of them very noumerous. The first is Clark-a-mus nation reside on a small river… the 2.d is the Cush-hooks who reside on the NE side below the falls.”
They note the entrance to the Multnomah river being “142 miles up the Columbia river” from the Pacific, include the sketched map, and then are off, up-river, continuing eastward.
An excerpt of the journal, the specific passage of which is available via this Oregon Encyclopedia post here as well.
Of the Lewis and Clark Maps, this would have to be the second, the first map was drawn in the fall of 1805 as they were headed westward, this map is drawn in April 1806 as they were headed eastward. They only discovered the Multnomah River (Willamette) when headed east. So the map drawn in 1805 is only partially the northern section of Portland today including Sauvie Island, and in 1806 they used the same pages to make additional marks for their westward journey so they filled in sections they did not previously have. But the whole of the Multnomah is not discovered until 1806.
Thanks for that David. Appreciate that thought. I had not looked closely at the outbound maps drawn by Clark (and really thought this was the only map of the area), so appreciate the thought and it nudged me to consider those original maps as the first documentation, so I definitely stand corrected. My dad, the Lewis and Clark fanatic, would be so disappointed that i hadn’t looked at these before, but I reviewed them today (via a great collection online can be found at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and agree that the Columbia River features and Wappato Island is well represented in these sketch maps. I also love that it is a map spanning multiple time periods, with the mapping of it coming downstream, and then adding notes to the same maps on the way back upstream adds a layered temporality to spatial info. As you mention, the mouth of the Willamette was not spotted (and almost missed again on the way back again), so that 1806 map and the short jaunt down south, along with the additional sketch info gleaned from the local tribal sources really filled in the gaps of what I consider ‘Portland’ in a more fully mapped sense of place. So maybe the 1805 maps would be considered the first map of the immediate locale at the confluence, and the 1806 version, with the added realization of the Multnomah (Willamette) and areas down to the Falls, would be the first full map of the entire Portland ‘place’ in a broader sense. Again – thanks for adding that dimension!
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