Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/188



overlooking the river, where he was buried with military honors. A cedar post, planted at the head of the grave, bore this inscription:

He is the first white man known to have been buried on Iowa soil.

A river which the explorers passed emptying into the Missouri from the east, about a mile north of their camp, was named Floyd in memory of the young soldier whose grave was made in that lonely region. More than half a century later Sioux City was laid out near the spot where Floyd was buried.

For more than fifty years the annual floods of the great river encroached upon the bluff, wearing away its shore, until in 1857 the current had undermined the point upon which the grave was made, leaving the bones of the soldier exposed to view. Some of the residents of Sioux City assembled upon “Floyd's Bluff” and, with appropriate ceremonies, reburied the remains of Sergeant Floyd farther back from the shore. They found the red cedar-head board which had been planted by Captain Lewis fifty-three years before, thus identifying the grave. *

Remarkable windings of the river were frequently observed by the explorers. At a place at which they took meridian observations, they found themselves so near a point they had passed the day before, that a man was sent to step across the narrow neck which separated the two stations. He stepped nine hundred and thirty-four yards,


 * On the 30th of May, 1901, a monument which had recently been erected to the memory of Charles Floyd, was dedicated. The monument was 100 feet in height and cost about $20,000. Congress and the Iowa Legislature made appropriations for the work, and Sioux City and private individuals also contributed.  By invitation Hon. John A. Kason came from Washington to deliver the address.  It was a valuable contribution to the history of the acquisition of Louisiana.  There was exhibited a manuscript journal kept by Sergeant Floyd up to the time of his death, which was found in 1893, among the historical collections of Dr. Lyman Draper of Wisconsin.