The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Volume 5 by Meriwether Lewis

Jefferson sent Michaux west to 'find the shortest & most convenient route ofĬommunication between the U. Acting for the American Philosophical Society, The following year, Jefferson sponsored a more promising effort by André Sea,' but apparently nothing came of the suggestion. They offered a reward of a thousand guineas to Marshall if he could provide proof of having reached the 'South In undertaking an expedition up the Missouri. Moses Marshall, a physician and botanist from Philadelphia, In 1792 Jefferson, then secretary of state under Washington, and variousįriends and associates in the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia Russians frustrated it by expelling Ledyard from their country. It was a far-fetched project at best, and the suspicious Ship to some point on the western coast of North America, and then strike outĪlone across the continent.

Ledyard planned to travel eastward across Siberia, secure passage on a John Ledyard, an American veteran of Captain James Cook's third voyage to the GeorgeĪ few years later, while minister to France, Jefferson encouraged the hopes of Then, as later, heįeared that Britain might secure a foothold west of the Mississippi (then the western boundary of the United States) and forestall American expansion. Leading a privately sponsored expedition to explore the West. In 1783, while serving in Congress, he asked the frontier Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark (the older brother of William) to consider Years before he launched Lewis and Clark across two thousand miles into immortality, Jefferson had planned for a transcontinental expedition starting up the Thomas Jefferson'sĬuriosity about the West was lifelong, sustained by his broad scientific interestsĪnd his hopes and dreams for the future of the United States. Lengthy by the time of the Louisiana Purchase in April 1803. The roots of the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were already

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Volume 5 by Meriwether Lewis