“We learn that a part of the collection of the curiosities collected by Captain Lewis on the Missouri, has reached Baltimore.”
— Universal Gazette (D.C.), August 22, 1805
A year before the formal United States acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, President Jefferson sent a confidential letter to Congress on January 18, 1803 to fund $2,500 for a scientific expedition up the Missouri River to open a passage to the Pacific. While historians and the media have focused on the historic journey from St. Louis to the Pacific, little is known of the Baltimore connection regarding the valuable shipment that was sent eastward.
The Shipment from Fort Mandan
On April 3, 1805, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark prepared to leave their camp at Fort Mandan at the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers for the Upper Missouri. The expedition spent their days packing their shipment of “curiosities” collected so far to be forwarded to President Jefferson in Washington. The shipment consisted of 4 boxes, 2 large trunks and 5 cages containing a variety of scientific observations, maps, a Mandan bow and quiver, botanical specimens, animal skins, and a live prairie dog.
On April 7, 1805, Captain Lewis sent four men and two interpreters under Corporal Richard Warfington down the Missouri from Fort Mandan to St. Louis. Here Captain Amos Stoddard, Captain Lewis’ agent, was responsible for forwarding the shipment to New Orleans then to Washington, via the Gulf Coast to the Chesapeake.
The Journey to Baltimore
The Orleans Gazette informed its readers: “The curiosities sent by Captains Lewis and Clark, to the president of the United States, were received by Governor Claiborne, some days ago—they were put on board the Comet, Captain McNeil, who sailed yesterday for Baltimore. The animals and birds, were in good health.”
The Baltimore-built Comet, described as “a strong, fast-sailing vessel, and in all respects well found; burthen 197 tons,” carried the cargo of “curiosities” along with 120 hogsheads of “fine New Orleans sugar.” Captain John McNeil departed New Orleans on July 23rd for Baltimore, 1,750 nautical miles away. After a fifteen-day passage they arrived in the Patapsco River on August 10th off Fort McHenry.
Arrival at Fort McHenry
Across from the Fort on the opposite shore lay the Lazaretto Quarantine Station (est. 1801) for vessels arriving from out of the country. Dr. William Stewart, Baltimore’s Public Health Officer, maintained his office at Philip Schwartzauer’s Tavern outside the military boundary gate of Fort McHenry. Upon checking the crew and shipment, the Comet was allowed to proceed to the Fell’s Point waterfront wharf of Thorndike Chase at Thames and Philpot Streets on August 12th.
Robert Purviance, Port Collector of Baltimore, engaged a local wagon drayer, Nathaniel Peck, to take the shipment to the White House for a payment of $12.00, arriving on August 14, 1805 and placed under the care of the President’s house manager-steward, Mr. Etienne Lemaire.
The Inventory
The following is an extract of the invoice of articles forwarded from Fort Mandan to the President:
- Box 1: Skins of male and female Antelope with skeletons; horns and ears of Black-tail deer; Martin skin containing weasel and three small squirrels of the Rocky Mountains; skeletons of burrowing wolf; a Mandan bow with quiver of arrows containing seed of Mandan tobacco
- Box 2: Four buffalo robes and an ear of Mandan corn
- Box 3: Skins of male and female Antelope with skeletons; skin of a brown or yellow bear
- Box 4: Specimens of earths, salts, and minerals (numbered 1-67); specimens of plants (numbered 1-60); one earthen pot of Mandan manufacture; a tin box containing insects and mice; specimens of plants prized by Natives as remedy for rattlesnake bite
- Large Trunk: Skins of burrowing dog of the prairies; red fox skins; four horns of mountain ram; a buffalo robe painted by a Mandan man representing a battle fought eight years prior between the Sioux and Ricaras against the Mandans
- Cage 6: Four living magpies
- Cage 7: A living burrowing squirrel of the prairie
- Cage 9: One living hen of the prairie
- Cage 10: A large pair of elk’s horns connected by the frontal bone
The Legacy
The long four-month navigable journey from Fort Mandan down the Missouri, the Mississippi to New Orleans and finally Baltimore was some 4,500 miles. Lewis and Clark reached St. Louis at noon on September 23, 1806, thus ending the Corps of Discovery’s epic adventure.
When Jefferson returned to Washington in October he designated the shipment to be divided among three sites: Rembrandt Peale’s Natural History Museum and the American Philosophical Society, both in Philadelphia, and his Virginia home at Monticello. Unfortunately, with Jefferson’s death in 1826, his “Indian Hall” collection had by the 20th century been lost, mislaid, or redistributed. Today, only the elk antlers have survived at Monticello. The major repository of the surviving shipment resides at the Harvard University Peabody Museum.
Today, the site of Thorndike Chase’s wharf is a National Historic Landmark at Fell’s Point, adjacent to the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Park.
