Who was the “widdow woman” of Wood River?

Letter from John Ordway to his parents, dated April 8, 1804, Oregon History Society Research Library

Sergeant John Ordway, 3rd in command on the 1804-1806 Corps of Discovery expedition after Lewis and Clark, wrote the above letter from “Camp River Dubois” (or “of the woods”) to his parents in New Hampshire on the eve of its departure. Ordway had volunteered for the Corps when Lewis and Clark stopped to recruit additional men for the expedition in November 1803 at Fort Kaskaskia. The contingent continued upriver in early December to establish a winter camp in Illinois across the Mississippi from St. Louis, near today’s Wood River. Ordway expresses “high spirits” as he describes his expectations for journey and his hopes for being rewarded at its conclusion.

Ordway famously kept the most consistent daily record of expedition, making an entry every day for a total of 863 entries. Since I am drawn to untold stories and try to see history through the eyes of women, I was caught by an entry near the end of the trip:

Tuesday 23rd Sept. 1806. a wet disagreeable morning.    we Set out after breakfast and procd. on    Soon arived at the Mouth of the Missourie River entered the Mississippi River and landed atRiver deboise where we wintered in 1804.    here we found a widdow woman who we left here & has a plantation under tollarable good way

After reading it, I couldn’t stop thinking about the “widdow woman” Ordway mentions. The entry both introduces her as someone the Corps knew during the winter of 1804 at “Camp River Dubois”, and who they remembered fondly enough to visit on their return two years later. We don’t know who she was, how she knew the men, if she worked at the camp, or her name. Yet she is clearly there, part of the story, and her existence inspired me to title my novel, The Widow of Wood River.