Seaman (dog)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Statue of York (Lewis and Clark) and Seaman on Quality Hill in Kansas City, Missouri

Seaman, a black Newfoundland dog, was purchased for $20 by Captain Meriwether Lewis for his famed Lewis and Clark expedition. The dog was once thought to have been named Scannon. The matter has been debated often over the years.

During the expedition, around May 14, 1805, both Captains, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, performed surgery on one of Seaman's arteries in his hind leg, that had been severed by a beaver bite. In early 1806, as the expedition was beginning the return journey, Seaman was stolen by Indians and Lewis uncharacteristically threatened to burn down their village unless the dog was returned.

Monture Creek in Montana was originally named for him as Seaman's Creek. However a transcribing error caused it to be named Scannon Creek.

In her book "Lewis and Clark and me : a dog's tale" (New York : Henry Holt, 2002) Laurie Myers reports that Lewis and Clark scholar, Jim Holmberg, discovered a book written in 1814 which listed epitaphs, and inscriptions. The book lists an inscription of a dog collar in a museum in Virginia. The inscription reads: "The greatest traveller of my species. My name is SEAMAN, the dog of captain Meriwether Lewis, whom I accompanied to the Pacifick ocean through the interior of the continenet of North America." Holmberg's research was published in the February 2000 issue of "We Proceeded On", the newsletter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

In the fictional book "New Found Land", Seaman is a main character.