Day-by-Day / June 10, 1803

June 10, 1803

Shipping goods

Meriwether Lewis arranges to freight the recently purchased goods from Philadelphia to Fort Fayette in Pittsburgh. The expedition’s most expensive piece of equipment, the chronometer, is cleaned, adjusted, and given a new mahogany box.

Small Freight Wagon

An old wagon with square sides

By WikiCommons user inkknife_2000. Permission to copy granted via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

The Pittsburgh Shipment

June the 10th 1803

Sir [William Linnard]

I called to see you with a view more fully to impress you with the necessity of providing a strong and effective team for the transportation of the public stores under my charge destined for Pittsburgh; the road mentioned in a former communication, and which from necessaty they must travel is by no means good, and I find that the stores will weigh at least 35 Hundred. If a team could be provided with five horses perhaps it would be better. I expect every thing will be in readiness by Tuesday or Wednesday next. Your Obt. & very Humble Sert.

Meriwether Lewis
Capt. 1st. U.S. Regt. Infty.[1]Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 53–4.

William Linnard was the military agent responsible for shipping “all Military, Medical and Hospital Stores, and all Indian goods” to the forts on the Western frontier including Forts Fayette (Pittsburgh), Massac, Southwest Point, and Kaskaskia.[2]Ibid., 54n.

Chronometer Box

Mr. Israel Whelen     To Henry Voigt  
1803 $ Ct.  
June 10 To Cleaning a chronometer, & adjusting 2     
  do.   To a new Box of Mohoconey Wood &c paid for 2 25  
  do.   To a Universal choint 2 50  
  do   To Cleaning a Silver Secont Watch 0 62 5
  $7 37 5[3]“Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Jackson, 91.

Related: Outfitting the Expedition | Lewis in Philadelphia

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 53–4.
↑2 Ibid., 54n.
↑3 “Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Jackson, 91.

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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).