William Clark was an American explorer who, along with Meriwether Lewis, led the dangerous and arduous Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803/06, which opened up the Pacific Northwest for the United States. Prior to and after the expedition, William Clark served in the United States Army and in the militia; he was governor of the Missouri Territory and, for 16 years up to his death, served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Although never formally educated, William was a great reader and a writer of no little flair, as his logs from the expedition demonstrate. Married twice, he produced eight children, but of course, popular history is always looking for a little spice, so there were rumors of an involvement with Sacagawea along the exploration route. Sacagawea joined the expedition along with her French trapper husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, while pregnant with her first child, giving birth to him shortly thereafter. Her skill as an interpreter/guide and her obvious distraction as a new mother make the possibility of outside hanky-panky quite remote – nonetheless, William Clark did formally become the boy’s guardian in 1815, after Sacagawea’s death. But that’s another story.
