In Washington City, President Thomas Jefferson writes about mammoths, the physiognotrace, and Charles Willson Peale’s Museum collection—theories and technologies that influenced the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Physiognotrace
To see labels, point to the image.
Watercolor by Charles Willson Peale (original size, 8-1/2 x 7-3/4 inches) enclosed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 28 January 1803. Courtesy Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Reading Room, Library of Congress.
Peale’s Collection
Washington Jan. 23. 1803.
Dear Sir [Charles Willson Peale]
I thank you for mr Rembrandt Peale’s pamphlet on the Mammoth, and feeling a strong interest in his succesful exhibition of the Skeleton, shall be very happy to hear he has the great run of visitants which I expect he will have.
I was struck with the notice in the papers of mr Hawkins’s physiognotrace . . . I would thank you for an explanation of the principle of it, for I presume no secret is made of it as it is placed in the Museum.
I rejoice at the progress of your collection. it is an immense work for an individual. that I must see the Mammoth is certain . . . . Accept my sincere good wishes and respects.
Th: Jefferson[1]Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 January 1803, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0327. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 January 1803, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0327. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 39, 13 November 1802–3 March 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 383–384.] accessed 15 May 2022. |
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- 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.
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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).