Field Brothers: Lewis and Clark Expedition

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.”