Lewis is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania receiving training in celestial navigation from Andrew Ellicott. In Washington City, President Jefferson writes a letter suggesting the Western expedition take some steel or iron corn mills with them.
Two 18th-Century Portable Corn Mills
Diderot, L’Encyclopédie
In addition to the portable hand-operated corn mill Lewis took along for the company’s use, at President Jefferson’s suggestion he bought two more to give away to Indians. The captains presented one of them to the Mandans. What became of the other two is still unknown.
There appears to be no hope of determining exactly what the three mills looked like. The two examples pictured above are from the great Encyclopédie edited between 1751 and 1780 by two Frenchmen, Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert.
Washington Apr. 30. 1803
Th: Jefferson to Capt. Lewis
I think we spoke together of your carrying some steel or cast iron corn mills to give to the Indians or to trade with them, as well as for your own use.
I make no doubt you have consulted with mr Ellicot as to the best instruments to carry. I would wish that nothing which passed between us here should prevent your following his advice, which is certainly the best.
accept my affectionate salutations.[1]Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0217 accessed 12 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0217 accessed 12 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 288–289.] |
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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.
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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.
- 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).