Corps of Discovery comes to library

Bushnell potter authority on Lewis and Clark

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BROOKINGS – For Bushnell potter Dave Huebner, 72, history has always been a big part of life: studying history, dressing in historical attire and re-enacting history.

“I’ve always been interested in history, I guess. I started out with the Boy Scouts in Florida, where I grew up. As part of a Boy Scout dance troupe, we put on the Hopi snake dance,” he said.

At the annual Brookings Summer Arts Festival, which he and his late wife Julie helped start in 1972 and have been a part of every year since, Huebner dresses “as something generic, maybe the fur trade would be close. I am not any particular person.”

On Tuesday morning at the glass-fronted display case at the Brookings Public Library, he’s dressed in casual street clothes.

However, he is there to show off his collection of several 1:6 scale (in scale modeling 1:6 represents a human 6 feet tall) historical figures who participated in the Corps of Discovery expedition led by Army officers Capt. Meriwether Lewis and 2nd Lt. William Clark.

From May 1804 to September 1806, the Corps, made up of a total of about 52 military and civilian members, explored the vast territory of the Louisiana Purchase made by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803.

In addition to Lewis and Clark, the figures include: Toussaint Charbonneau, his wife Sacagawea and their infant son Jean Baptiste; York, a slave, Clark’s boyhood companion and his “manservant”; and Seaman, Lewis’ Newfoundland dog, purchased for $20, who completed the entire expedition.

Made in China – to sell

Huebner has had the set of figures for about 10 years. It was given to him as a gift by John Driscoll, his wife’s cousin. The figures were made in China, have never been out of their boxes and are in mint condition.

“He made these to sell,” Huebner explained. “He was an industrial designer. He designed them and all the parts.”

Huebner steered Driscoll in the direction of reference books and research material that were key to the authenticity of the figures and how they were outfitted. However, Huebner doesn’t know how many of the sets were made and if they were sold for a profit.

Along with the figures on display, the case contains some interesting information, such as “10 little known facts about the Lewis and Clark Expedition.”

They include Jefferson wondering if it might encounter some wooly mammoths; Sacagawea being “reunited with her long-lost brother during the journey”; only one member of the expedition dying during the trek, Sgt. Charles Floyd, of appendicitis near modern-day Sioux City, Iowa, where he remains buried; Lewis later dying under mysterious circumstances; and Clark adopting Sacagawea’s children.

This and much more information about the expedition is found at www.history.com.

Additionally, a comprehensive overview of the Corps of Discovery and the Lewis and Clark expedition can be found online at www.pbs.org/lewis-andclark/, a production of American filmmaker Ken Burns, noted for bringing history to life through old photographs, film and the words of history-making participants.

Attention to detail

Library patrons who check out the exhibit should pay attention to detail: the authentic uniforms, clothing, weapons and tools meticulously recreated in miniature.

Clark is outfitted in an officer’s dress uniform, which he obviously did not wear on a day-to-day basis during the two-year expedition. However, the weapons he would have carried throughout the journey are well crafted and match the 1:6 scale of the figures: a musket with a bayonet and scabbard, a powder horn, a sword, and an ax of the type used in hand-to-hand combat.

Charbonneau is dressed as a fur-trader. His garb is Indian-like, likely of buckskin.

His weapons include a musket, flintlock pistol, ax, powder horn, and a large knife. Sacagawea is shown in Indian dress. And there is a backpack-like carrier, with the little head of 55-day-old Jean Baptiste peeking out.

Lewis is dressed in similar fashion to Clark, but his uniform has the single epaulet worn on the right shoulder, indicating his rank of captain. His weapons are similar to those carried by Clark and Charbonneau.

York is dressed in simple white clothes and like the other men is armed to teeth.

Finally, there’s a realistic replica of what a campfire might have looked like when set by the explorers at the end of day’s journey.

On a real-life scale, Huebner can personally relate to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Since 1997, he has presented programs on the explorers, tailoring his presentations to the age group of his audience. He has more than 200 items in his traveling display. He uses a lot of hands-on reproduction artifacts to invite questions and create interest: mapping and navigation instruments, kettles, knives, needles and axes to show how iron-age technology impacted native cultures.

Huebner usually dresses someone from the audience in an army uniform like a soldier in 1804 would have worn. He then carefully describes the “social history” of each article of the uniform. He has put together 12 uniforms himself.

While he did a presentation earlier this year, Heubner has pretty much gotten away from portraying either Lewis or Clark. Smiling, he said, “Well, they were all young folks. Clark was the oldest at about 38, or something like that.”

And his role now?

Smiling, he added, “I’m just a village potter.”

Huebner’s display can be seen at the Brookings Public Library through March.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.