Day-by-Day / March 14, 1803

March 14, 1803

Appropriations

Washington, DC The expedition’s appropriation bill is made public, a warrant for $2500 is issued, and Lewis is granted access to the Harpers Ferry armory and Israel Whelan, “Purveyor of Public Supplies.”

Pencil and Quill Pen

A white feathered quill and metal pencil on a rough, wooden desk

© 2013 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Taken in cooperation with the Fort Mandan Visitors Center.

Of all the material purchased for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, perhaps none was as important as the pens, ink, and paper used to record it.

The Appropriation

[By Authority.]

SEVENTH CONGRESS
OF THE
UNITED STATES;
AT THE SECOND SESSION,
Begun and held at the City of Washington,
in the territory of Columbia, on Monday, the sixth of December, one thousand eight hundred and two.

AN ACT
For extending the external commerce of
the United States.

BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars, be, and the same is hereby appropriated for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States, to be paid out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated.

NATHL. MACON,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
A. BURR,
Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.
Feb. 28, 1803.
APPROVED,
TH: JEFFERSON.[1]The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser (Washington City [D.C.]), 14 March 1803. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, … Continue reading

Thomas Jefferson requested the funding on January 18, 1803. It was referred to committee on 20 January 1803 and passed 22 February.

Warrant for $2500

Washington 14th March 1803

Dear Sir

I have issued a Warrant for the 2,500 dollars appropriated for the extension of the external commerce of the United States . . .

I have requested Mr King to project a blank map . . . . In this I intend to insert the course of the Mississipi as high up as the Ohio from Ellicot’s, the coast of the Pacific from Cook & Vancouver, the north bend of the Missouri & such other of its waters as are there delineated from the three maps of Arrowsmith & from that of Mackenzie, and the Rio Norte and other parts of the Missoury from Danville & Delisle.

With rispect & attachment Your obedt. Servt.

Albert Gallatin

Albert Gallatin served as Jefferson Secretary of the Treasury. For Nicholas King’s 1803 map, see Mapping the Rockies.

The Harpers Ferry Arsenal

Secretary of War to Joseph Perkins, superintendent of the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

14th March 1803.

Sir:

You will be pleased to make such arms & Iron work, as requested by the Bearer Captain Meriwether Lewis and to have them completed with the least possible delay.[2]Henry Dearborn to Joseph Perkins in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 75–6.

Related: Muskets and Rifles | The Iron-framed Boat | Schuylkill Arsenal

Whelan’s Purchase Orders

War Department 14th March 1803.

Sir:

You will be pleased to purchase when requested by the Bearer Captain Meriwether Lewis such articles as he may have occasion for, which he has not been able to obtain from public Stores. By order of the Secretary of War.

J. Wingate Junr. C.C.[3]Jackson, 76.

Related: Outfitting the Expedition | Lewis’s Medicinal Purchases

Lisa’s Kickapoo Problems

Don Manuel de Lisa and Company, residents and merchants of this Village of St. Louis, come before you to say . . . .

It is also well known that our good intentions are well proven in dividing by our efforts a party of 60 warriors of the Kickapoo nations, who lately were going out upon a war against the Osages . . . .

Manuel de Lisa Y Compañía[4]Lisa to Delassus, New Orleans, in Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785–1804, ed. A. P. Nasatir, Bison Books edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska … Continue reading

The ambitious Manuel Lisa in 1802 wheedled Spanish officials to obtain the license for Osage trade that the Auguste and Pierre Choteau had held for years. Less than a year after writing this letter, it would be the Chouteaus and their new allies, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who would intercept a Kickapoo war party on their way to the Osage. See also Auguste Chouteau and Pierre Chouteau

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser (Washington City [D.C.]), 14 March 1803. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045242/1803-03-14/ed-1/seq-2/.
↑2 Henry Dearborn to Joseph Perkins in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 75–6.
↑3 Jackson, 76.
↑4 Lisa to Delassus, New Orleans, in Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785–1804, ed. A. P. Nasatir, Bison Books edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 2:717–18, translated from Spanish.

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.

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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).