For everything historians know about the boat that helped carry the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the vast Louisiana Territory starting in 1803, there are some surprising gaps.

For example, it’s not clear exactly who built it, and two Western Pennsylvania communities have claimed to be where the barge was constructed. But from the details we do know, it seems the building of the boat was nearly as wild a ride as the 2,000-mile journey the craft would travel.

The expedition Merriweather Lewis and William Clark would lead wouldn’t be the very first to cross North America. Alexander Mackenzie traveled from Montreal to British Columbia, reaching the Pacific coast in 1793, a decade before Lewis and Clark would set out.

But it was to be an exploration of a new route into the interior of the continent and to the Pacific Ocean nonetheless, a crossing that would take nearly two years to complete and literally redraw the map of the United States of America.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson asked Congress for money to fund an exploratory expedition that would travel to the Pacific Ocean.

After Congress set aside $2,324 — the modern equivalent of about $67,000 — Jefferson chose U.S. Army Capt. Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition, and Lewis asked William Clark, who he’d served with in the militia, to join him in command.

Jefferson would say of his choice of Lewis, “It was impossible to find a character who to a complete science in botany, natural history, mineralogy and astronomy, joined the firmness of constitution and character, prudence, habits adapted to the woods and a familiarity with the Indian manners and character, requisite for this undertaking. All the latter qualifications Capt. Lewis has.”

All that remained was to outfit the voyage and set off.

The packing list was immense, from 150 pounds of portable soup, a dehydrated staple that was a precursor of bullion cubes, to dozens of axes, to more than 30 pounds of assorted glass beads for trade.

The main means of travel at first was to be by boat, and Lewis specified three craft for the expedition.

Lewis wanted a small wooden canoe, a metal-framed canoe and a larger boat.

While the larger craft Lewis ordered has been called a keelboat by historians for decades, as writer William K. Brunot pointed out in the Winter 2009-10 edition of Western Pennsylvania History, a keelboat generally refers to something else.

While Lewis’ boat did, indeed, have a keel, a strong beam that runs down the center of the boat that makes steering easier, keelboats are constructed and propelled differently than what Lewis specified.

Brunot notes that sources at the time referred to it as a barge, while others called it a galley. He argues in his article, “The Building of the Lewis and Clark Boat in Pittsburgh,” that other, similar crafts were common on the eastern waterways of the early United States, and some were reported being used further west, as well.

With a shallow draft, such craft can handle interior waterways that might not be very deep while still carrying a lot of cargo.

Lewis specified a boat that was 55 feet long and about 8 feet wide. It had a collapsible mast and a sail, as well as nearly two dozen oars, meaning it could sail with the wind, be rowed, be poled, or be towed by ropes from the shore.

That made it idea for traveling both upstream and downstream on rivers.

To protect the expedition, there was a small cannon, called a swivel gun, mounted on the bow, and a large-bore shotgun, called a blunderbuss, was mounted on the stern. There were hatches along the side that could be raised for extra protection, as well, and there were two covered spaces on the deck.

While the canoes were easy enough to construct, the boat Lewis specified was a much more complex project and required an experienced ship builder.

Lewis went to one of the hearts of that industry in the early United States: Western Pennsylvania.

With a growing population center near the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, and a fort located in what’s now Downtown Pittsburgh, close to the river, there were multiple options in the area.

The mystery of who, exactly, built the boat that carried the Lewis and Clark Expedition on their outward journey was compounded by the fact Lewis never names the builder in his journals or letters.

Perhaps he omitted the name because of the near constant stream of criticism he had for the builder, who was, by Lewis’ account, an alcoholic who had trouble keeping workers and meeting deadlines.

While in Pittsburgh preparing for the expedition, Lewis wrote to Jefferson about his progress.

“The person who contracted to build my boat engaged to have it in readiness by the 20th (of this month), in this however he has failed; he pleads his having been disappointed in procuring timber, but says he has now supplied himself with the necessary materials, and that he shall be completed by the last of this month; however in this I am by no means sanguine, nor do I believe from the progress he makes that he will be ready before the 5th of August; I visit him every day, and endeavour by every means in my power to hasten the completion of the work….”

In Brunot’s article, he points out that the long-held belief that the boats were built in Elizabeth in Allegheny County, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River, couldn’t be true for a variety of reasons.

In a 2019 blog post, the National Park Service noted that while Lewis was staying in Pittsburgh, he visited the builder every day. If the boat had been in Elizabeth, that would have been a 30-mile round trip every day, something he doesn’t mention.

Instead, Brunot suggests the boat was built at or near Fort Fayette, which was located near today’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Downtown, on the banks of the Allegheny.

There was a thriving ship building industry in Western Pennsylvania, and based on several years of research sparked by family documents brought to the Heinz History Center, Brunot theorizes the main builder was a man named Jacob Myers, who had lived and built boats in and around Pittsburgh and the Western frontier of the new nation starting in the 1780s.

“When Larry Myers contacted the History Center in 2007, his communication led to a valuable reevaluation of the evidence that has accumulated about the building of the Lewis and Clark barge some 200 years ago,” he wrote. “Much oft his evidence supports the conclusion that Jacob Myers was the principal builder of the Lewis Barge.”

But while Jacob Myers was experienced, he had real trouble sticking to the agreed-upon timeline.

Lewis updated Jefferson again when the boat was finished.

“It was not until 7 O’Clock on the morning of the 31st of August that my boat was completed,” he wrote, “she was instantly loaded, and at 10 a.m. on the same day I left Pittsburgh, where I had been most shamefully detained by the unpardonable negligence of my boat builder.”

He told Jefferson that on the first day the boat was supposed to be finished, it had only been planked on one side, and only the difficulty in finding another boat and the promises of the builder kept him from canceling the contract and moving on. Lewis would be disappointed once more.

“A few days after, according to his usual custom he got drunk, quarreled with his workmen, and several of them left him, nor could they be prevailed on to return,” he wrote to Jefferson. “I threatened him with the penalty of his contract, and exacted a promise of greater sobriety in future which, he took care to perform with as little good faith, as he had his previous promises with regard to the boat, continuing to be constantly either drunk or sick.”

Brunot encapsulated both the frustration and fascination that has dogged historians who hoped to know who actually built the boat, to understand why things went as poorly as they seemed to.

“Although Lewis didn’t indicate the boatbuilder, he generously heaped complaints and insults upon him,” Brunot wrote. “At least some of the blame for the delay was due to the impossibly tight schedule. Also, the builder may have promised more than he could deliver in order to get the contract. So it is understandable why the boat was still in an early stage of construction on July 15, 1803.”

Lewis had the barge and the other boats loaded on Aug. 31, 1803 and made his way down the Ohio to St. Louis. Eventually, the boat would carry the expedition all the way to what’s now North Dakota on the Missouri River, where the group spent the winter.

After that, the boat was reloaded and sent downriver back to St. Louis.

Brunot points out that while Lewis had few kind words for the boat builder and his crew, calling them “a set of most incorrigible drunkards,” the work they did proved itself over and over again.

“Judging by the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition, however, this Pittsburgh boatbuilder was the right man for the job after all,” Brunot wrote. “Beyond that, even a cursory reading of Lewis’s journal of his trip down the Ohio, in which the big boat was subjected to an amazing amount of abuse while being dragged over rocks at many rapids, it is a wonder that this boat made it as far as Cincinnati. This should also be a tribute to the design of the boat and its builder.”