Philadelphia Chapter
Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 39534
Philadelphia, PA 19136 www.lewisandclarkphila.org

PLEASE RELEASE BEFORE Thursday, January 23, 2003
Contact: Norma M. Milner, 856-829-3142 (day & night, answering machine)
Dr. Alfred E. Schuyler, President, Philadelphia Botanical Club 215-405-5088

To commemorate the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Philadelphia Botanical Club offers a unique public lecture, Saving an American Treasure—The Lewis and Clark Herbarium during the next 200 years by Richard M. McCourt of the Academy of Natural Sciences Botany Department. McCourt is curator of the newly archived plant collection gathered and pressed by the explorers in the American mid-West and West from 1803 through 1806. He will present the challenges of the present project to save the more than 200 specimens as well as its fabled history of travels to England, auctions, and trials on the way to survival.
McCourt will speak at 8 p.m., Thursday, January 23 at the Marvin Comisky Conference Center, Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley LLP, One Logan Square (one block east of the Academy). Enter the Logan Square building on the north side of Cherry Street between 18th and 19th Streets. The lecture is free.

(Additional information-- if desired. Tense may need to be adjusted if published before January 18. )
The Lewis and Clark four year Bicentennial kicked off on the West Lawn at Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on Saturday, January 18, with a parade, concert and a formal ceremony including Chief Kenneth Branham of the Monacan Nation, and President Tex Hall of the National Congress of American Indians. The gala event followed four days of Jefferson’s West: A Lewis and Clark Exposition.

The National Park Service opened its long waited traveling exhibit Corps of Discovery II: 200 years to the Future and the performance tent where voices of many immigrant nations and American Indian tribes, adults and children will express their feelings about the exploration. “Corps II” will next be at Harpers Ferry March 28-30 where a new museum dedicated to Lewis’s visit to the arsenal 200 years ago will be opened. It will crisscross the country reaching sites “off the trail” during the winter months, and following the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

At Monticello’s Sunday finale, crowds were treated to a view of the keelboat replica which on August 31 will be launched near Pittsburgh to begin a reenactment of the original journey. Rotating teams taken from a roster of 300 will be the crew.

The Bicentennial kick-off ended appropriately with a botanical touch. Peter J. Hatch, director of Monticello’s Gardens and Grounds led a Great Walk through gardens along Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Parkway. *** 420 Words.