He had made his first important independent decisions: where to spend his fast-disappearing time, and what boat to build. This was the beginning of a new relationship with Jefferson. Though Lewis was not yet quite out of the reach of the president’s communiqués, he was not far short of it—witness his decision to stay three extra weeks at Harpers Ferry despite his knowledge that Jefferson desperately wanted him to get to Philadelphia to study, and then get on the road.
In mid-April, Lewis set off to the east. He stopped first in Frederickstown, where on April 15 he wrote General William Irvin, superintendent of military stores, with headquarters in Philadelphia. Lewis said he wanted Irvin to purchase for him some necessary articles. First on the list was “Portable-Soup,” a dried soup of various beans and vegetables that Lewis may have used during his travels as an army paymaster. In any case, he was enthusiastic about it. He told Irvin, “Portable Soup, in my opinion, forms one of the most essential articles in the preparation [for the expedition], and fearing that it cannot be procured readily in such quantity as is requisite, I . . . take the liberty to request that you will procure two hundred pounds of it for me,” or however much was available on the market. “I have supposed that the soup would cost about one dollar pr lb; should it however, come much higher then quantity must be limited by the sum of $250 as more cannot be expended.”9 In the end, Lewis spent $289.50 on 193 pounds of portable soup, by far the highest sum for any area of provisions. He spent as much for dried soup as he had originally estimated for his instruments, arms, and ammunition.10
On April 19, Lewis arrived in Lancaster. He went immediately to the home of Andrew Ellicott, America’s leading astronomer and mathematician. Jefferson had earlier written Ellicott to ask him to teach Lewis to make celestial observations, and Ellicott had replied, “Mr. Lewis’s first object must be to acquire a facility, and dexterity, in making the observations; which can only be obtained by practice.”
Lewis and Ellicott wasted no time; on April 20, Lewis reported to Jefferson, “I have commenced, under his direction, my observations &c to perfect myself in the use and application of the instruments.” He found Ellicott to be “extreemly friendly and attentive, and I am confident is disposed to render me every aid in his power: he thinks it will be necessary I should remain here ten or twelve days.”11
While at Lancaster, Lewis picked up additional rifles. How many is not known, nor why he couldn’t get all he wanted at Harpers Ferry. They may have been improved models, since Lancaster was the manufacturing center for long rifles. But his list of necessary items, and of quantities required, continued to grow, indicating that at Harpers Ferry he had decided the expedition had to be a party considerably larger than a dozen men.
Another thought had come into his head: that another officer would be required. No evidence exists as to when, or even if, he discussed either of these critical matters with Jefferson, but how could he have failed to do so?
Lewis’s schooling in Lancaster in the use of sextant, chronometer, and other instruments took longer than Ellicott had anticipated. Not until May 7 was he ready to go to Philadelphia. The ride from Lancaster to Philadelphia took him over the most modern highway in America, completed in 1795, made of broken-stone, the country’s first gravel road. Stage wagons were able to average five to seven miles per hour on it.12 Going that fast in a stage was a new experience for Lewis.
In Philadelphia, he went to Patterson, who continued his instruction. With Patterson’s help, he selected a chronometer. He bought it from Thomas Parker, a clock- and watchmaker on South Third Street, for $250, by far the largest sum expended for any single item carried on the expedition. Lewis sent it to Ellicott to be regulated, with this note: “I have at length been enabled to procure a Chronometer which you will receive . . . and you will also receive with her a screw-driver and kee, the inner cases of the Chronometer are confined by a screw. She is wound up and the works are stoped by inscerting a hog’s bristle which you will discover by examination. She has been cleaned by Mr. Voit, and her rate of going ascertained by observation to be 14” too slow in 24 h.”13
Jefferson sent Lewis a current draft of his instructions, asking Lewis to comment, and to circulate the draft among the various savants in Philadelphia, for their comments and suggestions. Lewis worried about a phrase in the draft that indicated that the scientific instruments had already been provided. By whom? he wondered. What were they? He asked Jefferson for a list, so that he could consult with Patterson and Ellicott to make certain nothing had been omitted. He further informed Jefferson that his teachers “both disapprove of the Theodolite,” which Jefferson had told Lewis would be his best instrument for accurate measurements. It was “a delicate instrument, difficult of transportation, and one that would be very liable to get out of order,” and anyway it was “much more inacurate than the Sextant.”
His teachers agreed on what instruments would be “indispensably necessary.” They were “two Sextants, an artificial horizon or two; a good Arnold’s watch or chronometer, a Surveyor’s compass with a ball and socket and two pole chain, and a set of plotting instruments.”14
There was just a hint of a reminder in the letter that the decision-making power for the expedition was coming into Lewis’s hands. Jefferson acknowledged as much in his reply, regretting “the impression which has been misunderstood.” The draft Lewis had of the instructions would not be dated until the day he departed; Jefferson had assumed that by then Lewis would have made his selections and purchases. As to the theodolite, Jefferson told Lewis to do whatever Patterson and Ellicott recommended.15
Lewis was in Philadelphia through much of May and the first week in June. He made the rounds of the city, the list he and Jefferson had drawn up in hand, making purchases: fishing tackle, lead canisters, medicines, dry goods, tobacco, shirts. He spent $2,324.
Herewith a sampling of the items he purchased: six papers of ink powder; sets of pencils; “Creyons”; two hundred pounds of “best rifle powder,” and four hundred pounds of lead; “4 Groce fishing Hooks assorted”; twenty-five axes; woolen overalls and other clothing items, including “30 yds. Common flannel”; one hundred flints; “30 Steels for striking or making fire”; six large needles and six dozen large awls; three bushels of salt.
He bought oilskin bags to protect the instruments and journals. He got mosquito netting and field tables, and large, multipurpose sheets of oiled linen, each eight by twelve feet, for tents, and candles, so that he could write at night. The sheets of oiled linen could double up as sails by day.
For Indian presents, five pounds of “white Glass Beads mostly small,” and twenty pounds of red assorted beads; 144 “small cheap Scizors”; “288 Common brass thimbles”; ten pounds of assorted sewing thread; silk; paint and vermilion; 288 knives; combs; arm bands; and ear trinkets. Lewis insisted on taking a preponderance of blue beads, because they were “far more valued than the white beads of the same manufacture and answer all the purposes of money.” The emphasis was on the gay and gaudy rather than the useful. Although Lewis called them presents, they were trade goods. He did not intend to give them away; rather, he would use them to purchase goods and services from the Indians.
Lewis and Clark scholar Paul Russell Cutright writes, “It was no small task to anticipate all that he would need in the way of arms, food, clothing, camping paraphernalia, scientific instruments, and Indian presents for a party of still undetermined size that, for an indefinite period of time, would be out of touch with normal supply sources.”16
How well he had done, only the event could tell. One small peek ahead is appropriate here, however, because it reveals so much about Lewis and the point of view he held. During the expedition, the party ran out of many useful or pleasure-giving items, including tobacco, whiskey, salt, and blue beads. A frontiersman could live without those things. The expedition ran short of, but never out of, many critical items. But when it got home, the expedition had sufficient powder and lead to repeat the journey, and plenty of rifles. (Lew
is had arranged at Harpers Ferry for lead canisters that when melted down made exactly the right number of balls for the amount of powder in the canister.)
Lewis had the frontiersman’s faith in his rifle. As long as a man had his rifle, ammunition, and powder, he would take on anything the wilderness could throw at him.
Lewis also had plenty of ink left when he got home, enough for another voyage. That ink wasn’t critical to making the trip, but it was critical to making the expedition a success by recording its findings. Lewis had his priorities right.
The purchase of the soup was a serious cost overrun. Along with the extra rifles he purchased in Lancaster, the amount indicates that, the more he thought about what he might encounter, the larger the size of the party was becoming in his imagination. The amounts of medicine he purchased also indicate he now planned to take many more than a dozen men.
His medical adviser was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the most eminent American physician of the day. On May 17, Lewis called on him at his home on the corner of Walnut and Fourth Streets, bringing along Jefferson’s draft instructions for Rush’s comments.
They talked. Rush gave advice, beginning with: “When you feel the least indisposition, do not attempt to overcome it by labour or marching. Rest in a horizontal posture. Also fasting and diluting drinks for a day or two will generally prevent an attack of fever. To these preventatives of disease may be added a gentle sweat obtained by warm drinks, or gently opening the bowels by means of one, two, or more of the purging pills.”
Those pills were under Dr. Rush’s patent, known as “Rush’s pills” but generally referred to as “Thunderclappers.” As far as Rush was concerned, they were sovereign for nearly all mankind’s ills. They were composed of calomel, a mixture of six parts mercury to one part chlorine, and jalap. Each drug was a purgative of explosive power; the combination was awesome. Mercury had an even more important role in Lewis’s pharmacy: it was the treatment of choice for syphilis (and remained so until the advent of penicillin during World War II).
Another piece of advice from Dr. Rush: “After long marches, or much fatigue from any cause, you will be more refreshed by lying down in a horizontal posture for two hours, than by resting a much longer time in any other position of the body.”17 There is no evidence of Lewis’s asking the good doctor what he thought they would be encountering out there.
Lewis reported to Jefferson, “Dr. Rush has favored me with some abstract queries under the several heads of Physical History, medicine, Morals and Religeon of the Indians, which I have no doubt will be servicable in directing my inquiries among that people.”
Rush’s questionnaire asked about the diseases of the Indians, and their “remidies,” at what age menstruation began and ended, the age of marriage, how long they suckled their children, the state of the pulse in the morning, at noon, and at night, before and after eating. At what time did they rise? What about baths? Murder? Suicide? “Do they employ any substitute for ardent spirits to promote intoxication?” Any animal sacrifices in their religion? “What Affinity between their religious Ceremonies & those of the Jews?” (Here Rush was looking for the fabled Lost Tribe of Israel.) More realistically, “How do they dispose of their dead, and with what Ceremonies do they inter them?”18
It was an eclectic list of questions, some silly, some stunningly on the mark. They illustrated how little could even be guessed about the nature of the Indian tribes of the West, or their numbers.
In addition to the questionnaire, Rush prepared a medical list for Lewis. Amounting to $90.69 for drugs, lancets, forceps, syringes, and other supplies, it included fifty dozen (!) Rush’s Pills along with thirty other kinds of drugs. Those most used were Peruvian bark, jalap, opium, Glauber salts, niter (i.e., potassium nitrate, or saltpeter), tartar emetic, laudanum, calomel, and mercurial ointment. The drugs Lewis bought contained thirteen hundred doses of physic, eleven hundred of emetic, thirty-five hundred of diaphoretic (sweat inducer), and more, including drugs for blistering, salivation, and increased kidney output, along with tourniquets and clyster syringes.
While at Harpers Ferry, Lewis had thought of bringing a doctor along, but by May he evidently had decided he himself would be the doctor. He had learned from his mother a great deal about herbs and simples and herb therapy, and wasn’t afraid to experiment. Like all frontiersmen, he knew how to set a broken bone or remove an embedded bullet or arrow, how to cope with croup or dysentery.
Rush was impressed by Lewis. He wrote Jefferson, “His mission is truly interesting. I shall wait with great solicitude for its issue. Mr. Lewis appears admirably qualified for it. May its advantages prove no less honorable to your administration than to the interests of science.”19
•
It wasn’t all work. Lewis did a considerable amount of socializing in Philadelphia with his friend Mahlon Dickerson. They moved in the highest social circles: dinner one evening with Jefferson’s great friend Dr. George Logan; another evening with Governor Thomas McKean at his mansion on the northeast corner of Third and Pine Streets.20
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By day, Lewis expanded his studies. He went to Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the first textbook on botany in the United States, just published when Lewis came to him. Barton lived a few steps from Independence Hall, at 44 North Fifth Street. He had studied in England and Germany, and he had made fairly extensive field trips in Pennsylvania. He was mesmerized by the expedition. The thought of all that was waiting to be discovered tempted him so much that he talked with Lewis about the possibility of going along. Lewis was enthusiastic about the idea; Barton would certainly be an asset in collecting and describing. But he was thirty-seven years old, a scholar, not a soldier. “I fear the Dr. will not carry this design into effect” Lewis told Jefferson—rightly, as it turned out.21
Still, Barton made important contributions. He taught Lewis how to preserve specimens, either plant or bird- or animal-skin. He taught Lewis the importance of specimen labels, including place and date of collection. Barton expanded Lewis’s vocabulary and range of knowledge. In a painstaking study on the scientific writing of Lewis, Elijah Criswell compiled a list of almost two hundred different technical terms the captain employed in describing new plants and animals, a quantity showing, in Criswell’s words, “a remarkable knowledge for an amateur, of scientific, especially botanical, descriptive terminology.”22
Dr. Caspar Wistar was the last of the Philadelphia savants Lewis turned to for education. Wistar held the chair of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and had published the first American textbook on anatomy. He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society and the foremost authority on fossils in America. He talked with Lewis about that anomalous beast the Megalonyx, which he and Jefferson had discovered, and about the mastodons he and Jefferson believed might still inhabit the prairies.23
One last thing Lewis got in Philadelphia—his traveling library. It included Barton’s Elements of Botany, which was not a gift—Lewis paid six dollars for it. Lewis borrowed a book from Barton, Antoine Simor Le Page du Pratz’s History of Louisiana. He had Richard Kirwan’s Elements of Mineralogy (London, 1784), a two-volume edition of Linnaeus (the founder of the system of Latin classification of plants), and a four-volume dictionary, along with A Practical Introduction to Spherics and Nautical Astronomy and The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, together with tables necessary to finding latitude and longitude.24
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On May 29, Lewis sent a long-overdue report to Jefferson. He announced that on June 6 or 7 he would be able to depart for Washington for a final conference, then would be off. He would have all his preparations completed in a day or two, but wanted to stay on an extra few days for additional study with Patterson. He enclosed some tracings he had made of Vancouver’s map of the northwestern coast. He explained why a tracing rather than the original: “The
maps attached to Vancouver’s voyage cannot be procured seperately from that work, which is both too costly, and too weighty, for me either to purchase or carry.”25
Geographer John Logan Allen points out that it took considerable cartographic technique to copy the charts from Vancouver’s work. Lewis, Allen writes, “was not simply a passive receptor of the geographical materials being assembled by Jefferson and Gallatin. It seems, rather, that he was active in gathering data for the purpose of taking it along on the expedition.” Dr. Allen further speculates, on the basis of internal evidence, that Lewis made a copy of the David Thompson map of the Great Bend of the Missouri River, done late in the last century and in the possession of the British chargé d’affaires in Washington.26
During the second week in June, Lewis abandoned his original plan to go by South West Post. He had heard there were too few good men in the garrison, and that no boat would be waiting in Nashville. So he arranged transportation by the army, at the army’s expense, for thirty-five hundred pounds of goods to be moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Because the “road which from necessaty they must travel is by no means good,” Lewis ordered a five-horse team to pull the wagon.27 Apparently it was also at this time that he entered into a contract with a boatbuilder in Pittsburgh.
Then he set off for Washington. Probably foremost in Lewis’s mind was the size of the party, along with an inevitable need for a second officer. None had been mentioned, but Lewis wanted one. If Jefferson approved, Lewis had a candidate in mind, as well as a highly unusual command arrangement. The president and the captain also needed to go over the final instructions in detail. Jefferson needed to bring Lewis up-to-date on the status of the proposed purchase of New Orleans. The two men had a lot to talk about before Lewis headed west.