Day-by-Day / May 17, 1803

May 17, 1803

Red paint and questions

Israel Whelan, Purveyor of Public Supplies in Philadelphia, purchases red paint pigments on behalf of the expedition. Also on this day, Benjamin Rush, one of the expedition supporters, writes his list of questions for Meriwether Lewis to ask the Native Nations they will encounter.

Red Lead

a pile of red lead pigment powder

From Wikipedia user BXXXD. Permission given via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Red Paints

Supplies from Private Vendors
  Philada. May 17. 1803
Israel Whelan Esqr. Bot. of Saml. Wetherill & Son
2 lb. Vermillion @ 12/6 1   5 –
8 lb. Red lead @ /8    6 8
  £1 11 8

[Endorsement:] Recd. June 7. 1803 of Israel Whelen Four Dollars & 22 Cts. in full.[1]“Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), … Continue reading

Samuel Wetherill was a “druggist, apothecary, and vendor of paints and colors.” Essentially, Lewis was purchasing red paint in pigment form—both of which were toxic. Vermillion was made by mixing mercury and sulfur and then heating it. Red lead is a pigment powder made from two different lead oxides. The vermillion was for Indians, but the red lead may have also been for the expedition’s use.

Related: Outfitting the Expedition | Lewis in Philadelphia

Rush’s Questions for Indians

II. Morals

1. What are their vices?
2. Is Suicide common among them?—ever from love?
3. Do they employ any substitute for ardent spirits to promote intoxication?
4. Is murder common among them, & do they punish it with death?[2]Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:50. See also Jackson, 1:157-58, for … Continue reading

For Benjamin Rush‘s complete list, see Rush’s Questions for Indians.

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 “Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 89.
↑2 Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:50. See also Jackson, 1:157-58, for Clark’s 1804 compilation of Indian questions, with suggestions from Dr. Caspar Wistar and Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton and others.

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).