Field Brothers: Lewis and Clark Expedition

F-83

Brothers Joseph Field (d. 1807) and Reubin Field (d. ca. 1822) were highly valued members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean (1803-1806). Both were born near here, probably by 1782, to Abraham and Elizabeth “Betty” Field. The family relocated to Jefferson County, near Louisville in present-day Kentucky, in the fall of 1784, and the brothers grew to adulthood there. Known as skilled woodsmen and hunters, they were among the first three men William Clark recruited for the Expedition. In 1807, Meriwether Lewis noted that the Field brothers had been “engaged in all the most dangerous and difficult scenes of the voyage, in which they uniformly acquited themselves with much honor.”

Department of Historic Resources, 2024

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Eugene A. Field and Lucy C. Field, “The Ancestry of Joseph and Reubin Field of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery” www.luciefield.net “Reuben and Joseph Field,” Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, NPS: https://www.nps.gov/articles/reuben-and-joseph-field.htm George H. Yater, “Nine Young Men from Kentucky,” We Proceeded On, no. 11 (May 1992, second printing June 2000). Barbara Fifer, “Joseph Field,” Discover Lewis & Clark: https://lewis-clark.org/members/joseph-field/ Barbara Fifer, “Reubin Field (ca. 1781-ca. 1822),” Discover Lewis & Clark: https://lewis-clark.org/members/reubin-field/ Roy E. Appleman, “Joseph and Reubin Field, Kentucky Frontiersmen of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and Their Father, Abraham,” Genealogies of Kentucky Families (1981): 478-509. Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, With Related Documents, 1783-1854 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962). Larry E. Morris, The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers after the Expedition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).