Day-by-Day / December 9, 1803

December 9, 1803

Cahokia connections

While in Cahokia, Lewis receives mail and newspapers sent to him by President Jefferson. In St. Louis, the Spanish Governor of Upper Louisiana updates his superiors about the nature of Lewis’s mission.

News from Home

While at Cahokia, Lewis received a letter from President and newspapers from Washington City and Philadelphia.

Washington Nov. 16. 1803.

Dear Sir

I will direct the Aurora & National Intelligencer to be forwarded to you for 6. months at Cahokia or Kaskaskia, on the presumption you will be there.

TH: JEFFERSON[2]Jefferson to Lewis, Donald Jackson, ed. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 138.

Lewis’s Mission

. . . I believe that his mission has no other object than to discover the Pacific Ocean, following the Missouri, and to make intelligent observations, because he has the reputation of being a very well educated man and of many talents.

May God keep Your Excellencies many years.

St. Louis, Illinois, December 9, 1803

Carlos Dehault Delassus

Señores Brigadiers of the Royal Armies
Don J. Manuel de Salcedo and Marqués de Casa Calvo.[3]Delassus to Salcedo and Casa Calvo, St. Louis, 9 December 1803 in Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785–1804, ed. A. P. Nasatir, Bison Books edition. … Continue reading

 
 

Notes

Notes
1 The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser (Washington City [D.C.]), 07 Nov. 1803). Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045242/1803-11-07/ed-1/seq-1
2 Jefferson to Lewis, Donald Jackson, ed. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 138.
3 Delassus to Salcedo and Casa Calvo, St. Louis, 9 December 1803 in Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785–1804, ed. A. P. Nasatir, Bison Books edition. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 720.

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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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  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.