Contributions of Philadelphia to Lewis and Clark History
Part I-- Prelude (1803)
by Paul Russell Cutright

26. Lewis and Dr. Barton

In 1803, Dr. Barton resided at 44 North Fifth Street, just a few steps from Independence Hall, but we know all too little about Lewis's visits to that address. In a letter to Jefferson on May 29, Lewis said that Dr. Barton had promised to contribute "abstract queries"-- perhaps similar to those supplied by Rush-- and that he "has sometimes flattered me with the pleasure of his company as far as the Illinois; this event would be extremely pleasing to me for many reasons; I fear the Dr. will not carry this design into effect; he tells me that his health has been pretty good latterly, and that he is determined to travel in some direction two or three months during the ensuing summerand autumn." (35)

As a teacher of natural history and an avid collector of both plants and animals, Barton was probably as well informed as anyone of his day on how best to preserve specimens, and probably instructed Lewis in current methods. It may have been Barton who informed Lewis of the importance of using specimen labels bearing such consequential data as place and date of collection. Several of the herbarium specimens brought back by Lewis, now housed in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, still bear his original labels of purplish-colored paper with hand-written annotations. It may have been Jefferson, of course, who hammered home the importance of labeling. All too often, to his annoyance, the plants he received from friends bore no identification. He eventually made it a point, when soliciting plants, to send accompanying directions on how to label them.

Barton could have told Lewis how to prepare a bird-skin, and may well have done so; but, once again, so could Jefferson, who left a description of his method in his Garden Book:

Make a small incision between the legs of the bird; take out the entrails & eyes, wipe the inside & with a quill force a passage through the throat into the body that the ingredients may find a way into the stomach & so pass off through the mouth. Fill the bird with a composition of 2/3 common salt & 1/3 nitre pounded in a mortar with two tablespoonsful of black or Indian pepper to a pound. Hang it up by its legs 8 or 10 weeks, & if the bird be small it will be sufficiently preserved in that time. If it be large, the process is the same, but greater attention will be necessary. The seasons also should be attended to in procuring them, as the plumage is much finer at one time of the year than another.... (36)

(35) Thwaites, op. cit., VII, 224.

(36) Betts, op. cit., 95.