Charles Floyd (explorer)

Charles Floyd (* 1782 in Kentucky; † August 20, 1804 on the Missouri River) was a sergeant and quartermaster during the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

His father, Captain Charles Floyd had served with William Clark's brother, General George Rogers Clark, in the United States Army. Nathaniel Hale Pryor, Sergeant of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was his cousin.

In the summer of 1803 Charles Floyd came to Clarksville in Indiana territory on the Ohio River across from Louisville, one of the first volunteers for the expedition of Lewis and Clark.

He died on August 20, 1804 after a short illness on the Missouri River, and was buried near the present town of Sioux City on a hill. Lewis and Clark diagnosed a biliary cause of death, historians consider appendicitis likely.

His tomb in 1857 was washed into the river by erosion. His remains were buried again in the vicinity. In 1901 was erected in honor of Charles Floyd south of Sioux City, on today's Highway 75, an obelisk, on which he has his final resting place. The 30 -meter high monument is made of sandstone.

The reports that Charles Floyd wrote during the expedition were published in 1894 together with the diaries of Sergeant John Ordway.