Lewis’s Air Gun

Meriwether Lewis brought an air gun similar to this one and showed it to people in the many Indigenous communities that the expedition passed through.

U.S. Army Heritage Program

In Pittsburgh, Meriwether Lewis purchased a specialty “air gun” that he thought might be a good conversation piece, to help break the ice with people whose territory they would enter along the way—people whose help the party would need to complete the journey.

What was an air gun?

It was a gun that did not require gunpowder, but rather used compressed air from a tank to fire a bullet. It is the same concept as a BB gun, but with the firepower of a full rifle. It may have been manufactured in Philadelphia, but it is not entirely clear. Wherever it was made, it was an unusual gun for the time that few people (European, Indigenous, or African) would have been familiar with.

Lewis first showed it to people on Brunot Island. French settlers there were interested in it, and one man accidentally shot a woman with it (she was okay).

In October 1804, Lewis showed off the air gun to Arikara leaders Kakawissassa (Lighting Crow), Pocasse (Hay), and Toone (Eagle Feather) along the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Clark wrote, “after the Council was over we Shot the Air gun, which astonished them . . .”

He demonstrated the gun to Shoshone people in August 1805, and he said they found it “so perfectly incomprehensible that they immediately denominated it the great medicine.” 

Lewis showed his gun to Clatsop leader Coboway and other community members in January 1806, and he again boasted in his journal of how much his new friends liked the gun.

When on the busy Columbia River, Lewis shot his gun off for families descending the river in their canoes. He wrote, as he did of people before them, that “they were much astonished.”

Were they really, or was everyone just being polite? Was this man with his strange gun anything more than a curiosity to them, another traveler on a busy highway?

About this article: This article is part of a series called “Pivotal Places: Stories from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.”

Lewis and Clark NHT Visitor Centers and Museums

This map shows a range of features associated with the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, which commemorates the 1803-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. The trail spans a large portion of the North American continent, from the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. The trail is comprised of the historic route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, an auto tour route, high potential historic sites (shown in black), visitor centers (shown in orange), and pivotal places (shown in green). These features can be selected on the map to reveal additional information. Also shown is a base map displaying state boundaries, cities, rivers, and highways. The map conveys how a significant area of the North American continent was traversed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and indicates the many places where visitors can learn about their journey and experience the landscape through which they traveled.