November 14, 1803

Arriving at the Mouth of the Ohio

[P]assed Wilkinson ville about 12 Oclock oposite to which is the first or great chain of rocks streching in an oblique manner across the Oho this evening landed on the point at which the Ohio and Mississippi form there junchon
—Meriwether Lewis

Related: James Wilkinson, Secret Agent Number 13

Lewis’s Illness and Treatment

set out by light at sunrise I took a doze of Rush’s pills which operated extremly well and I found myself much to my satisfaction intirely clear of fever by the evening. felt myself much better but extreemly weak—
—Meriwether Lewis

Related: Rush’s Bilious Pills

The pamphlet “An Account of Louisiana,” is presented to the Senate and House of Representatives on this day. It provides 70 pages of details about the Louisiana province including a fanciful tale of a mountain of pure rock salt and the serious issue of Spanish Land Grants.

Mountain of Rock Salt

One extraordinary fact relative to salt must not be omitted. There exists about 1000 miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a Salt Mountain! The existence of such a mountain might be questioned, were it not for the testimony of several respectable and enterprising traders, who have verified it, and who have exhibited several bushels of the salt to the curiosity of the people of St. Louis . . . . This mountain is said to be 180 miles long, and 45 in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees, or even shrubs on it.^[1]U.S. State Department, “An Account of Louisiana laid before Congress,” (Providence: Heaton & Williams), Nov 13, 1803, 16.

What would soon be called “Jefferson’s Mountain of Salt” seemed to inspire a decade of Federalist satire. See January 4, 1804 and Postscript to the Purchase for more. See also David Dzurec, “Of Salt Mountains, Prairie Dogs, and Horned Frogs: The Louisiana Purchase and the Evolution of Federalist Satire 1803–1812,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring 2015), 79–108, available at JStor.

Spanish Land Grants

The lands are held in some instances by grants from the Crown, but mostly from the Colonial government. Perhaps not one quarter part of the lands granted in Louisiana are held by complete titles; and of the remainder a considerable part depends upon a written permission of the officer last mentioned. This practice has always been countenanced by the Spanish government, in order that poor men, when they found themselves at ease, might at their own conveniency apply for and obtain complete titles. In the mean time, such imperfect rights were suffered by the government to descend by inheritance, and even to be transferred by private contract.^[2]Ibid., 41–42.

Handling Spanish land grants became a difficult task for the future governors of Upper Louisiana and Missouri Territories—Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, respectively.