Background

Patrick Gass was the son or grandson of Henry Gass, early settler of Sherman’s Creek Valley, then Cumberland, now Perry County, Pennsylvania. The Gass family were Scotch-Irish and restless frontiersmen. When Patrick was an infant they removed from his birthplace, Falling Springs, Pennsylvania, to Maryland.

Education

Patrick was sent to his grandfather’s for schooling, but reported that he attended school only nineteen days; he did, however, learn to read and write.

Career

In 1782, the family moved across the mountains to the Youghiogheny River and three years later to Catfish Camp, now Washington, Pennsylvania. There in 1792, his father was drafted to garrison a frontier post and Patrick took his place.

The next year, he took a trip to New Orleans, returning to his home near Wellsburg, Virginia, by way of Cuba and Philadelphia. After this, he was apprenticed to a carpenter.

In 1803, he was in the regular army, stationed at Kaskaskia; he joined Lewis and Clark as a private but on the death of Charles Floy was chosen, August 20, 1804, by the suffrages of his mates, a sergeant.

He kept a journal and upon his return was the first one of the expedition to publish an account of the memorable journey. His notes were revised by a Wellsburg schoolmaster, David McKeehan, and the volume appeared in 1807, with many quaint illustrations.

Gass was in the War of 1812, with Jackson against the Creeks, and, in 1814, on the northern frontier, taking part in the battle of Lundy’s Lane.

After the war, he returned to Wellsburg, where he lived in shiftless fashion until 1831 when he married Maria Hamilton, who bore him seven children and died in 1846. In 1855, he was one of a delegation to Washington, seeking for better pensions. They were not granted and he lived on his ninety-six dollars a year, aided by his children and friends.

In his later life, he joined the Campbellites, being baptized in the Ohio River.

Achievements

• Gass was important to the expedition because of his service as a carpenter, and he published the first journal of the expedition in 1807, seven years before the first publication based on Lewis and Clark's journals.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Journals of Patrick Gass, The: Member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

    (Seargeant Patrick Gass was one of the few members of the ...)

  • Gass's Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Voyage des capitaines Lewis et Clarke, depuis l'embouchure du Missouri, jusqu'à l'entrée de la Colombia dans l'Océan Pacifique, fait dans les années 1804, 1805 et 1806 ... (French Edition)

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Lewis and Clarke's Journal: to the Rocky Mountains As Related by Patrick Gass

    ( Military Service Inst )

Views

Quotations: "Having gone 21 miles we arrived at the great Columbia river, which comes in from the northwest. We encamped on the point between the two rivers. The country all round is level, rich and beautiful. "

Personality

Gass was short, broad-shouldered, sinewy, and deep-chested. Lewis wrote for him a testimonial that he was noted for manly firmness and fortitude, and that he was entitled to the highest confidence.

He was indeed a loyal, faithful subordinate; his worst vice was a fondness for liquor, which he overcame in his later life.

Connections

At the age of sixty, Gass married a woman of 22 and had 5 children in the next 15 years of her life.

Grandfather:

Henry Gass

Wife:

Maria Hamilton Gass

2 July 1812 - 16 February 1849

Daughter:

Rachel Maria Gass Brierley

30 March 1848 - 31 May 1926

Daughter:

Annie Jane Gass Smith

5 September 1841 - 2 February 1926

Daughter:

Sarah “Sallie” Gass Bowman

28 March 1838 - 14 March 1921

Son:

James Waugh Gass

15 July 1843 - 1909

References

• With Lewis and Clark: The Life of Patrick Gass (Abridged, Annotated)