What were the tools and techniques they used to get stuff done? How did they build canoes, make rope and clothes, and preserve food?
The Cooper’s Howel
From the early 15th to the end of the 19th century a cooper was a skilled craftsman who made casks or barrels of various descriptions. The word cooper originated in an old Dutch expression meaning cask.
Jefferson-Lewis Cryptology
Jefferson's ciphers
by Joseph A. Mussulman
It was Thomas Jefferson who gave cryptography in America its greatest impetus. Sometime in 1803 Jefferson presented Meriwether Lewis with a cipher based on a square table or tableau used to create a substitution cipher.
The Sounding Horn
The "sounden horn"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In May of 1803, Lewis bought four “tin horns”—elsewhere called “Tin blowing Trumpets” or, by Sgt. Ordway, “Sounden [Sounding] horns.” They were likely used a signals between boats and on several occasions a horn was used to call in lost hunters.
Lewis’s Branding Iron
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis may have had this branding iron custom-made before he left the East, perhaps at Harpers Ferry, although there is no mention of it in existing records. Such tools commonly were used for marking wooden packing crates and barrels, and on leather bags, until the early 20th century.
Lead Powder Kegs
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis ordered 52 lead canisters specially made to carry and protect the expedition’s gunpowder.
Log Line, Reel, and Ship
Measuring nautical speed
by Joseph A. Mussulman
This device was typically used for measuring the speed of a vessel at sea, but it could also be used to measure the velocity of a river’s current. It consisted of four parts: a log-ship, or log-chip; a specially calibrated log-line; a reel to hold the log-line; and a log-glass, or sand-glass.
Yokes
Instruments and metaphors
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1806, Noah Webster defined the noun yoke as “a bandage on the neck, chain, bond, bondage, mark of servitude, couple, pair.” The word yoke can also denote a type of wooden device to harness animals that have been bred and trained to pull heavy loads.
Thermometers and Temperatures
by Robert R. Hunt
President Jefferson held a long-term interest in climate and thermometers and recording climate data was included in his instructions to Lewis. Where Lewis obtained his thermometers and why the temperature on so many days days went unrecorded remains a mystery.
Bench Planes
A bench plane is a chisel locked into a holder or “stock” of a hard wood such as beech. There are six planes in a joiner’s basic kit.
Caching Supplies
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis records the method for hiding and storing goods, which he learned from the French members of the Corps.
Engraving
Mass producing art
by Joseph A. Mussulman, William Gadradt
The printing of pictures employed a 350-year-old technology based on a process called intaglio—from an Italian word meaning to “cut in”—in which lines and dots were incised into a metal sheet called a plate.
Hunting and Fishing
Although hunting and fishing were often considered a ‘gentleman’s sport’ especially in Europe, hunting and fishing for Native Americans and Americans alike were a matter of survival. The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition depended on the success of its hunters.
Expedition Tents
Shelter on the trail
by Robert R. Hunt
While in Philadelphia in the summer of 1803, Lewis clearly had foreseen the rigors of weather which would be encountered on a planned two year “campaign.” He carefully provided, as any military commander would, for appropriate protection for his soldiers.
Cooking on the Trail
What they ate and how they cooked it—from drying meat to making biscuits. Several pages include recipes.
Profile Portraiture
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1802 the British-born Philadelphian, John Isaac Hawkins (1772-1805)5, invented a new kind of copy machine, a pantograph with which a person could produce a miniature copy of his or her profile through direct contact. He called it a physiognotrace.
Salt-curing Meat
Preserving without refrigeration
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Salt served functions that were equally as important as dietary needs: drying meat—namely, and tanning hides for clothing and moccasins.
Canoe-building Tools
Chapter 7
by William W. Bevis
Froe
Making boards from logs
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Making Leather
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“The men of the garison are still busily employed in dessing Elk’s skins for cloathing.” Regrettably, Lewis was compelled to add that “they find great difficulty for the want of branes [brains].”
Artificial Horizons
Tools for making celestial observations
by Robert N. Bergantino
Lewis’s remarks about the comparative suitability of the three horizons used to observe stars—one using water and two with mirrors—are analyzed and illustrated by Robert N. Bergantino.
Making Fire
Matches and magic
by Robert R. Hunt
Weaponry
Tools of survival
The guns and various military accouterments carried by the expedition members needed to do more than deter attacks and provide food, they needed to impress the Native Americans with whom American weapons could be a primary item of trade.
Making Rope
Using the rope walk
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In a purely physical sense, the expedition was held together by rope. Rope for handling the barge, the pirogues and the canoes. Rope to secure sails and anchors, and for towing. Rope for fastening packages, assembling tents, and controlling horses.
The Salt Works
Making salt from ocean water
by Joseph A. Mussulman![](/media/salt-works-rh-3545-sq.jpg")
On 28 December 1805, the officers detailed three enlisted men to proceed to the Ocean and “at Some Convenient place form a Camp and Commence makeing Salt with 5 of the largest Kittles . . . .”
Measuring Heights and Distances
From Owen's Dictionary
by Joseph A. Mussulman
This article shows methods for measuring heights and distances as described by Owen’s Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1754), a book in the expedition’s traveling library.
Portable Inkwell
Their most important tool
by Joseph A. Mussulman
None of their tons of supplies, not even the guns, powder, and bullets with which they fed themselves, were ultimately as important as the pens, ink, and paper they carried, and protected from the elements.
Mosquito Netting
Pomp's 'bier' was a 'bar'
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis writes: “the bier in which the woman carrys her child and all it’s cloaths wer swept away as they lay at her feet she having time only to grasp her child.” This bier, then, is a bar or net serving to keep mosquitos from one’s personal blood supply.
Celestial Reckoning
by John Logan Allen
Thomas Jefferson was as interested in the methods and equipment for “ascertaining by celestial observation the geography of the country” as with any other single aspect of the Expedition. As faithfully as they could, the captains complied with the President’s wishes.
Making Candles
by Kristopher K. Townsend
Early in 1806 while wintering at Fort Clatsop, the last candles burned down, and Lewis described how they would make new candles out of tallow rendered from elk fat. This is the process.
Lithography
"Stone-printing"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1798 a German actor-playwright-turned-printer named Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) discovered the principle of lithography, relying upon simple chemical principles—the mutual repulsion of oil and water, and the mutual attraction of water and salt.
Scales and Steelyards
Tools of commerce
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The use of a lever as a tool for measuring weight in terms of current standards of weights and measures may be at least as old as labor and commerce. It embodies a classic proposition in elementary mechanics.
Dyes and Shellac
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
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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