At Wheeling in present West Virginia, Lewis re-supplies and gives the crew a day to rest, wash clothes, and have some bread baked. He writes a letter to President Jefferson, purchases another boat, and hires another crew member. He also accepts Doctor William Patterson’s offer to join the expedition. He shares a ‘clever’ dinner—and later has watermelon—with Thomas Rodney.
A Day of Rest
purchased a perogue and hired a man to work her, my men were much fatiegued and I concluded it would be better to give them a days rest and let them wash their clothes and exchange their flour for bread or bake their bread in a better manner than they had the means of baking it while traveling[.]
—Meriwether Lewis
Dinner and Dessert
Northern Pike
Esox lucius
Drawing by Timothy Knepp of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
dined with Colo. Rodney and his suit, in the evening they walked down to my boat and partook of some watermellons.
—Meriwether Lewis
I dined at Mr. Zanes with the Major and Shields and Captain Lewes on the Great Ohio pike which was not dressed yesterday, and I found it to be a very good kind of fish; and we had a cleaver diner. Mr. Linsey, a lawyer, and Doctor [blank] were introduced to us there . . . . went on board Captain Lewes’s barge to eat watter millons . . . .
—Thomas Rodney[1]Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 51.
A Letter to the President
Wheeling, September 8th 1803.
I have been compelled to purchase a pirogue at this place in order to transport the baggage which was sent by land from [Pittsburgh], and also to lighten the boat as much as possible. On many bars the water in the deepest part does not exceed six inches. I have the honour to be with the most perfect regard and sincere attatchment Your Obt. Servt.
Meriwether Lewis. Capt.
1st U.S. Regt. Infty.[2]Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., Donald Jackson, ed., (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:122.
Dr. Patterson Signs On
Wheeling, September 8th 1803.
I here also met with Dr. Patterson the son of the professor of mathematicks in the University of Philada. he expressed a great desire to go with me I consented provided he could get ready by three the next evening he thought he could and instantly set about it; I told the Dr. that I had a letter of appointment for a second Lieut. which I could give him but did not feel myself altogether at liberty to use it as it was given me by the President to be used in the event of Mr. Clark’s not consenting to go with me to the Illinois[.]
—Meriwether Lewis
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Notes
| ↑1 | Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 51. |
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| ↑2 | Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., Donald Jackson, ed., (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:122. |
