Next stop...Virginia.   Featured on your cachet from the great state of Virginia is a man known only as “York”.  He was born in Caroline County near Ladysmith, Virginia in the early 1770s.  York, along with his father, mother, brother and sister, were all slaves of the Clark family.  York was William Clark’s servant from boyhood.  As a matter of fact, he was left to William in his father’s will.  York was an integral member who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition sent by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Territory and the Oregon Country, traversing land up to the Pacific Ocean and back to the East from 1804-1806.   Because York was a large, and notably strong man, he shared the duties and the risks of the expedition.  However, it wasn’t as though he had a say in the matter anyway.  York was the only African-American slave member of the expedition and the first black man to cross the continent north of Mexico.  From the journals we  find record of the assignments given him that would attest to his skill in scouting, hunting and field medicine.  York was allowed to use a firearm to hunt game, as well as for protection, at a time when slaves where not generally permitted to carry firearms...

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