this county at an earlier date than did Bourgmont, but information concerning them is vague and uncertain. Perin du Lac, a French explorer, set foot upon the soil of Atchison county while on an exploring trip up the Missouri in 1802–03. In his journal, published soon after his return to France, Du Lac mentions that “three miles below the old Kances Indian village they perceived some iron ore.” As the “old Kances village” was the one already referred to as having been at Doniphan, the iron ore discovered by Du Lac must have been in Atchison county, somewhere in the vicinity of Luther Dickerson’s old home, where the rocks are known to be strongly impregnated with iron. Du Lac gathered some specimens of the Atchison county ore, which he must have lost, for he says in his journal: “I intended to have assayed it on my return, but an accident unfortunately happening prevented me.” In the summer of 1804 the famous “Louisiana Purchase exploring expedition” of Lewis and Clark passed up the Missouri river, arriving at the southeast corner of Atchison county on July 3. They passed Isle Au Vache, or Cow Island, opposite Oak Mills, stopped at a deserted trader’s house at or near the site of Port William, where they picked up a stray horse (the first recorded mention of a horse in what is now Atchison county) and camped that night somewhere in the vicinity of Walnut creek. The next morning they announced the “glorious Fourth” with a shot from their gun boat, and there began the first celebration of our Nation’s birthday on Kansas soil. That day they took dinner on the bank of White Clay creek, or what they called “Fourth of July creek.” Here Joe Fields, a member of the party, was bitten by a snake, and Sergeant Floyd, in commemoration of the incident, named the prairie on which Atchison now stands, “Joe Fields’ Snake Prairie.” Above the creek, they state, “was a high mound, where three Indian paths centered, and from which was a very extensive prospect.” This, undoubtedly, was the commanding elevation where the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home now stands. On the evening of the Fourth they discovered and named Independence creek in honor of the day, and closed the day’s observances with “an evening gun and an additional gill of whiskey to the men.”