As Meriwether Lewis tells the story, “Capt. Clark and Drewyer killed the largest brown bear this evening which we have yet seen. It was a most tremendous looking anamal, and extremely hard to kill notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance acoss the river to a sandbar & it was at least twenty minutes before he died.”

They estimated the bear weighed 500 pounds and it was full of “flesh and fish.” Watching a full-grown bear take 10 rifle balls shook several members of the hunting party. A few days later, on May 14th they ran into another bear and it almost ended differently for the humans.

Lewis wrote that after that bear was shot twice through the lungs it charged the men. The hunters couldn’t reload fast enough so they ran away. As Lewis tells it, “the bear pursued and had very nearly overtaken them before they reached the river.”

After two of the hunters shot the bear again, it rushed them and they were forced to jump into the Missouri River. The bear quickly followed and according to Lewis, it was only a few feet behind the humans when someone else shot the grizzly through the head. The bear was so mighty that it took 8 balls to finally kill it.

Within 100 years of those events, grizzlies were gone from the Plains. A study by The Grizzly Bear Recovery Project suggests that the bear population in the plains states sat around 6,576 in 1800. That study doesn’t believe any grizzlies lived in Kansas by 1800 but newspaper reports disagree. In the fall of 1867, reports surfaced that Herman Marxstein was attacked and killed by a grizzly bear.

Either way, by 1900, Americans ran grizzly bears off the Plains through hunting and habitat destruction. While grizzlies disappeared in the wild, a few towns folk in Leavenworth, Kansas were interested in captive grizzlies.

The Smoky Hill and Republican Union reported on 6/06/1863 that a group of Winnebago tribespeople being forceably relocated from Wisconsin to the Dakotas visited a captive grizzly bear in Leavenworth. The warriors spoke with a Mr. Cleveland for several days until they were able to visit the bear in order to honor it. That bear was not the last one to be seen in Leavenworth.

In 1867, the city marshal told Aleck Garden to muzzle the bear he kept outside his store. As the Leavenworth Daily Commercial mentioned, “it is right as the bear is dangerous.” It’s hard to argue with that reasoning!

Our last dispatch from Leavenworth was on 12/05/1868. Two previous bear captives weren’t enough for Leavenworth apparently and Frank Horn just had to have another one.

His bear escaped and ran around Cherokee and Delaware streets “frightening the women and children and raising a general panic.” The bear was finally caught next to Woolf’s Shirt Depot where the paper casually mentions “the crowd was greeted by a display of Woolf’s unparalleled shirts and drawers.” I hope Woolf’s appreciated the free advertising.

Grizzlies weren’t just captives though, people also forced them to fight as entertainment.

In 1867 someone thought it was a great idea to have a bull and grizzly fight in a ring. This person was described as “an enterprising individual” who just wanted to entertain Leavenworth and every other town along the Missouri River from Omaha to Kansas City. That fight lasted over an hour and the bull eventually died from its wounds.

A couple of months later, the grizzly was killed in St. Louis by another bull. One paper described it saying the “Bruin was beautifully vanquished” in the fight. Within 20 years of these fights, the grizzly bear vanished from the Great Plains when the last known bear was killed in western North Dakota near Oakdale in 1897.

The Great Plains Lewis and Clark experienced had been shaped by Native Americans for centuries but it was still teeming with life. They opened the floodgates to the Americans going west and altered that forever. It only took 60 years for the mighty grizzly bear to become a circus act forced into captivity for our entertainment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732634)

then come several encounters.

then: "I find that the curiossity of our party is pretty well satisfied with rispect to this anamal, the formidable appearance of the male bear killed on the 5th added to the difficulty with which they die when even shot through the vital parts, has staggered the resolution of several of them, others however seem keen for action with the bear; I expect these gentlemen will give us some amusement sho[r]tly as they soon begin now to coppolate."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732660)

at the mouth of this river we Saw the Tracks of White bear which was verry large.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732686)

On 13 April 1805, at the Little Missouri River, Lewis wrote expectantly:

we saw . . . many tracks of the white bear of enormous size, along the river shore and about the carcases of the Buffaloe, on which I presume they feed. we have not as yet seen one of these anamals, tho’ their tracks are so abundant and recent. the men as well as ourselves are anxious to meet one of these bear.

Lewis’s pulse must have raced as he continued:

the Indians give a very formidable account of the strength and ferocity of this anamal, which they never dare to attack but in parties of six, eight or ten persons; and are even then frequently defeated with the loss of one or more of their party. the savages attack this anamal with their bows and arrows and the indifferent guns with which the traders furnish them, with these they shoot with such uncertainty and at so short a distance . . . that they frequently mis their aim & fall a sacrefice to the bear. . . . this anamall is said more frequently to attack a man on meeting with him, than to flee from him. When the Indians are about to go in quest of the white bear, previous to their departure, they paint themselves and perform all those supersticious rights commonly observed when they are about to make war uppon a neighbouring nation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732687)

On 6 May 1805, near the Milk River, in northeastern Montana, Meriwether Lewis revised his opinion of grizzlies once again. He referred to them as “gentlemen,” that word denoting, in Lewis’s lexicon of manners, a landowner. And those animals clearly were the undisputed sovereigns of the river bottoms.

I find that the curiossity of our party is pretty well satisfied with rispect to this anamal, the formidable appearance of the male bear killed on the 5th added to the difficulty with which they die when even shot through the vital parts, has staggered the resolution of several of them, others however seem keen for action with the bear; I expect these gentlemen will give us some amusement sho[r]tly as they soon begin now to coppolate.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732689)

On 11 May 1805, a few miles upstream from the mouth of the Milk River, one member of the party had a hairbreadth escape from death. Lewis recorded the details:

About 5 P.M. my attention was struck by one of the Party running at a distance toward us and making signs and hollowing as if in distress, I ordered the perogues to put too, and waited until he arrived; I found that it was Bratton the man with the soar hand whom I had permitted to walk on shore, he arrived so much out of breath that it was several minutes before he could tell what had happened. . . .

Private William Bratton, who was not among their best hunters:

. . . had shot a brown bear which immediately turned on him and pursued him a considerable distance but he had wounded it so badly that it could not overtake him; I immediately turned out with seven of the party in quest of this monster, we at length found his trale and persued him about a mile by the blood through very thick brush of rosbushes and the large leafed willow; we finally found him concealed in some very thick brush and shot him through the skull with two balls. . . .

They might well have shaken their heads in amazement:

we proceeded dress him as soon as possible, . . . we now found that Bratton had shot him through the center of the lungs, notwithstanding which he had pursued him near half a mile and had returned more than double that distance and with his tallons had prepared himself a bed in the earth of about 2 feet deep and five long and was perfectly alive when we found him which could not have been less than 2 hours after he received the wound

Captain Lewis was beginning to get a better grip on the grizzly.

these bear being so hard to die reather intimedates us all; I must confess that I do not like the gentlemen and had reather fight two Indians than one bear.

His choice of word in reference to Ursus horribilis, spontaneously drawn from his lexicon of manners and slightly tinged with sarcasm, was nontheless fitting. “Gentlemen” denoted landowners, and those beasts indisputably were the natural lords of this land. We may forgive his flash of bravado, also. He had not yet fought any Indians, and was to do so only once in his life—on July 27, 1806. But he would survive his own solitary showdown with a grizzly just five weeks later.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732693)

Meriwether Lewis had his own close call with a grizzly on 14 June 1805. He had found the Great Falls of the Missouri on the previous day, and now set out alone to explore the river above—where he was to find four more falls and rapids. In the vicinity of today’s Riverfront Park in the city of Great Falls, Montana, and since it was late in the day he decided to kill some meat and make camp—whereupon he had what he was later to characterize modestly as “a curious adventure.”

Under this impression I scelected a fat buffaloe and shot him very well, through the lungs. While I was gazeing attentively on the poor anamal discharging blood in streams from his mouth and nostrils, expecting him to fall every instant, and having entirely forgotton to reload my rifle, a large white, or reather brown bear, had perceived and crept on me within 20 steps before I discovered him.

In the first moment I drew up my gun to shoot, but at the same instant recolected that she was not loaded and that he was too near for me to hope to perform this opperation before he reached me, as he was then briskly advancing on me. It was an open level plain, not a bush within miles nor a tree within less than three hundred yards of me. The river bank was sloping and not more than three feet above the level of the water. In short there was no place by means of which I could conceal myself from this monster untill I could charge my rifle.

In this situation I thought of retreating in a brisk walk as fast as he was advancing untill I could reach a tree about 300 yards below me, but I had no sooner terned myself about but he pitched at me, open mouthed and full speed. I ran about 80 yards and found he gained on me fast. . . . The idea struk me to get into the water to such debth that I could stand and he would be obliged to swim, and that I could in that situation defend myself with my espontoon. Accordingly I ran haistily into the water about waist deep, and faced about and presented the point of my espontoon.

At this instant he arrived at the edge of the water within about 20 feet of me. The moment I put myself in this attitude of defence he sudonly wheeled about as if frightened, ? retreated with quite as great precipitation as he had just before pursued me. & the cause of his allarm still remains with me misterious and unaccountable.

So it was, and I feelt myself not a little gratifyed that he had declined the combat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732705)

On 28 June 1805, at their camp at the upstream end of the portage around the falls of the Missouri, Lewis complained:

The White bear have become so troublesome to us that I do not think it prudent to send one man alone on an errand of any kind, particularly where he has to pass through the brush. we have seen two of them on the large Island opposite to us today but are so much engaged that we could not spare the time to hunt them, but will make a frolick of it when the party return and drive them from these islands. they come close arround our camp every night but have never yet ventured to attack us and our dog gives us timely notice of their visits, he keeps constantly padroling all night. I have made the men sleep with their arms by them as usual for fear of accedents.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732706)

On 2 August 1806, on the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Clark himself shot a grizzly:

about 8 A.M. this morning a Bear of the large vicious Species being on a Sand bar raised himself up on his hind feet and looked at us as we passed down near the middle of the river. he plunged into the water and Swam towards us, either from a disposition to attack’t or from the Cent of the meat which was in the Canoes. we Shot him with three balls and he returned to Shore badly wounded. in the evening I saw a very large Bear take the water above us. I ordered the boat to land on the opposite Side with a view to attack’t him when he Came within Shot of the Shore. when the bear was a fiew paces of the Shore I Shot it in the head. . . . the men hauled her on Shore and proved to be an old Shee which was so old that her tusks had worn Smooth, and Much the largest female bear I ever saw.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47732708)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undaunted_Courage

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47733112)

imagine a 500 pound beast, faster than Usain Bolt, tracking you down to hit you with this:

https://tinyurl.com/yz39b6yn

and then eat you while you are still alive:

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0710/28/huge-grizzly-bear-teeth-jaw-cast_1_12aea25b61e3f8c704794334562002da.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47749136)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#47766892)

cannot possibly be a real name

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#48032131)

Early Encounters: Lewis and Clark’s first encounters with grizzlies reveal their initial underestimation of the bears’ strength and tenacity. The accounts from May 1805, where a bear survived numerous gunshots, highlight the formidable nature of these animals.

Native American Warnings: The journals reflect how Native American accounts of grizzly bears were initially met with skepticism by the expedition members, who later had their views changed through direct experience.

Personal Experiences: Lewis’ own close encounters, such as the one on June 14, 1805, where he was nearly attacked by a grizzly, illustrate the danger and unpredictability of grizzly encounters. His recounting of trying to defend himself with an espontoon while wading in the water adds a personal and dramatic touch.

Attitudes and Changes: The progression in Lewis’ attitude towards grizzlies is evident. Initially viewed with a mix of curiosity and skepticism, his experiences gradually lead him to a more respectful—and cautious—view of these “gentlemen” of the wild.

Cultural and Historical Context: The historical context of the grizzlies’ decline in the Great Plains due to hunting and habitat destruction is well-documented, reflecting on how the wilderness and its inhabitants were transformed by American expansion.

Humor and Irony: The humorous and ironic tone in some passages, such as Lewis' reference to grizzlies as "gentlemen" and his relief at avoiding a fight, adds a layer of complexity to his observations.

Overall, Mainlining's posts provide a vivid and detailed snapshot of the interactions between early American explorers and the formidable grizzly bears of the Great Plains.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5538745&forum_id=2...id#48046265)