Charles Floyd

Charles Floyd (ca. 1782-1804) was born in what is now St. Matthews, in Jefferson County, Kentucky. He was a talented young man who at the young age of twenty-one had already served as a constable and frontier mail carrier. He was one of the first three recruits for the expedition, was appointed one of the three sergeants for the Corps, and kept a journal. He has the unenviable distinction of being the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die on the expedition. Ironically, even though he did not journey more than a thousand miles up the Missouri River, the largest single monument dedicated solely to Lewis and Clark honors this fallen explorer.

Read a more detailed biography of Floyd

The Life, Death, and Monument of Charles Floyd: “a young man of much merit”