At Wheeling, complications arise over 90 pounds of baked bread, and a potential new expedition member—a doctor—fails to appear. At 3:00 pm, Lewis says goodbye to Thomas Rodney and departs. Rodney describes Lewis’s mission and predicts that he will ultimately fail. During the night, it rains so hard that Lewis is wet to the skin trying to keep the cargo dry.
Our Barge at Rest
10″ x 6″ oil on board
© 2009 by Charles Fritz. Used by permission. Originally titled “Our Keelboat at Rest.”
90 Pounds of Bread
I was now informed that by some mistake in the contract between the Corporal and the woman who had engaged to bake the bread for the men at Wheeling that the woman would not agree to give up the bread being 90 lbs. and that the bread was left I instantly dispatched the Corpol. and two men for the bread and gave him a dollar to pay the woman for her trouble;
—Meriwether Lewis
Rodney Bids Farewell
Just after diner Captain Lewis called on me to bid me farewell. The Major, Shields, and I went down and took a parting drink and part of a water Mellon on board his boat and then bid him adieu and stayed on shore to see him depart, and I waited till I saw him over the first ripple.
—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), 53.
Leaving Without the Doctor
The Dr. could not get ready I waited untill thre this evening and then set out had some difficulty in geting over a riffle one mile below the town, got on six miles and brought too
—Meriwether Lewis
Wet to the Skin
about the time we landed it began to rain very heard and continued to rain most powerfully all night with small intervals: had my perogues covered with oil-cloth, but the rain came down in such torrents that I found it necessary to have them bailed out freequently in the course of the night; in attending to the security of my goods I was exposed to the rain and got wet to the skin as I remained until about twelve at night, when I wrung out my saturated clothes, put on a dry shirt turned into my birth; the rain was excessively could for the season of the year—
—Meriwether Lewis
Captain Lewis’s Object
Captain Lewes’s object is to assend the Misisipi and to visit Lake of the Woods, to assertain accurately its latitude and longitude and as well as the head of the Misisipi, and then return to or cross over to the Misouri and explore those parts and barnches of that are yet unknown and the country of Louisana west of the Misisip.
—Thomas Rodney[2]Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal, 51.
Rodney Predicts Delays and Failure
Captain Lewes is a stout young man but not so robust as to look able to fully accomplish the object of his mission, nor does he seem to set out in the manner that promises a fulfilment of it. He sits out in a vessel 56 feet long and completely equipped with sails and 18 oars, with as many soldiers and riverman as are necessary to man her . . . . His vessel fitted with very nice and comfortable accommodations with great stores of baggage and cargo so that she draws 2½ feet water and will be very heavy to go up against the stream of the Misisipi and other rivers. This will be the cause of great delay . . . .
—Thomas Rodney[3]Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal, 52.
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