PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — It’s been almost 120 years since the man for whom Pike County is named first came ashore in a keelboat.

Zebulon Montgomery Pike was a contemporary of Lewis and Clark who left a lasting imprint locally and nationally.

The New Jersey native had what biographer Elliot Coues said was a “resolute spirit” and “combative energies.” Eager to prove himself, the 26-year-old commander gladly accepted an order in 1805 to lead the first American military exploration of the Upper Mississippi River.

Pike, a sergeant, two corporals and 17 privates left St. Louis at 4 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 9, They carried $2,000 worth of supplies – about $41,000 today. The expedition reached what would become Pike County on Wednesday, Aug. 14, camping on Crider Island between Clarksville and Louisiana.

Pike lamented in his journal that it rained all day, but was pleased that his men netted “1,375 small fish” to supplement their provisions. Showers fell again the next morning and because of “the continued series of wet weather, the men were quite galled and sore,” Pike wrote.

Maps made by the explorers noted the “handsome rocky cliffs” in the area. The group encountered Noix Creek at the future site of Louisiana and proceeded to the nearby confluence of the Salt River, which Pike called “a considerable stream.”

The expedition passed modern-day Ashburn and continued for the more adventurous part of the trip upstream. After wintering in Minnesota, the voyagers began paddling back in spring 1806. The men again stopped near the mouth of the Salt, where they witnessed a huge flock of birds.

“The most fervid imagination cannot conceive their numbers,” Pike said. “Their noise in the wood was like the continued roaring of the wind, and the ground may be said to have been absolutely covered with their excrement.”

The party also met Sac tribesmen who wanted to trade pigeons for liquor, but Pike declined. They ate supper April 28 at the mouth of the Salt, but “so violent a gale and thunderstorm” arrived around midnight that they were forced to move.

Anxious to get home, the men rowed for four hours the next morning in the rain until stopping briefly for breakfast. After spending the night in Portage de Sioux, they made it to St. Louis at noon on April 30. Remarkably, there were no deaths on the eight-month journey.

The mission had been to find the river’s source, make treaties with the natives, avoid conflict with the British, describe natural elements and scout possible locations for an American fort. Pike succeeded in all but the first, incorrectly naming Leech Lake as the starting point for the river. It’s nearby Lake Itasca.

In any event, Pike became a hero. He had suggested his journal would “have little to strike the imagination,” but Americans ate it up. And, because it was published four years before the journals of Lewis and Clark, the book became required reading for those headed to the frontier.

Pike would continue exploring, most notably to what became the American Southwest, and never lost his disdain for the British monarchy.

An example happened during a stop at an English fort on the Upper Mississippi trip. The commander had ordered his men to shoot down a Union Jack and hoist an American flag in its place.

The King would get revenge during the War of 1812, when Pike was struck by shrapnel as he stormed Fort York at Toronto. As he took his last breath, Pike’s bloodied head fell upon a downed British flag – perhaps his final repudiation of English sovereignty.

Mathew L. Harris and Jay H. Buckley are among those who have weighed in on Pike’s enormous legacy. In a 2012 book, they call him “one of the most significant explorers in the early republic,” even though “most Americans know little about him today.”

“It’s a big story,” agreed Dr. John C. Anfinson, a former historian and cultural specialist with the National Park Service. “It doesn’t have to be Lewis and Clark to be important.”