PRINTER'S NO. 3782
No. 676 Session of 2006
INTRODUCED BY LEVDANSKY, HERMAN, PISTELLA, BALDWIN, BEBKO-JONES,
BEYER, BOYD, BUNT, CALTAGIRONE, CAPPELLI, CLYMER, COHEN,
COSTA, CRAHALLA, CREIGHTON, CURRY, DALEY, DENLINGER, DeWEESE,
FABRIZIO, FAIRCHILD, FRANKEL, GEIST, GEORGE, GERGELY,
GINGRICH, GOODMAN, GRUCELA, HARHART, HARPER, HASAY, HERSHEY,
JAMES, JOSEPHS, KOTIK, LEACH, LEDERER, LEH, MAHER, MAITLAND,
MANN, MARKOSEK, McGEEHAN, McILHATTAN, MELIO, MUNDY, MYERS,
PALLONE, PARKER, PERZEL, PETRARCA, PETRONE, PICKETT, RAMALEY,
RAPP, READSHAW, REICHLEY, ROBERTS, ROEBUCK, SAMUELSON,
SANTONI, SAYLOR, SCAVELLO, SHAPIRO, SIPTROTH, B. SMITH,
SOLOBAY, STAIRS, R. STEVENSON, STURLA, TANGRETTI,
E. Z. TAYLOR, TIGUE, VEON, WALKO, WOJNAROSKI AND YOUNGBLOOD,
APRIL 3, 2006
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON TOURISM AND RECREATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,
APRIL 3, 2006
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
1 Urging the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation to support
2 legislation calling for Federal approval of the extension of
3 the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.
4 WHEREAS, The Lewis and Clark Expedition was conceptualized by
5 President Thomas Jefferson, who appointed his personal
6 secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the expedition; and
7 WHEREAS, Meriwether Lewis spent the early months of 1803 in
8 southeastern Pennsylvania, where he trained with the official
9 Surveyor of the United States, Andrew Ellicott, in Lancaster
10 County and received instruction in celestial navigation; was
11 tutored in botany by Benjamin Smith Barton, professor of natural
12 history and botany at the University of Pennsylvania in
1 Philadelphia; gained knowledge of latitude and longitude, botany
2 and fossils from University of Pennsylvania's vice-provost and
3 professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, Robert
4 Patterson; received advice on health standards to maintain on
5 the trail, diet and internal cleansing from Dr. Benjamin Rush,
6 professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of
7 Medicine and Clinical Practice; and studied paleontology and
8 anatomy with Caspar Wistar, another noted Philadelphian; and
9 WHEREAS, Meriwether Lewis purchased more than 3,500 pounds of
10 equipment and merchandise from 28 Philadelphia merchants and
11 artisan manufacturers providing life necessities for the 28-
12 month venture, including portable shelter, clothing,
13 illumination, Indian trading goods, weapons, powder and ball,
14 health maintenance items, emergency food, navigational and
15 cartographic instruments, construction tools and packing boxes,
16 and all was loaded in a Conestoga wagon along with supplies
17 requisitioned at the United States Arsenal, also known as
18 Schuylkill Arsenal, for shipment to Pittsburgh; and
19 WHEREAS, Renowned Philadelphia clock and gun maker Isaiah
20 Lukens provided Meriwether Lewis with a compressed air rifle he
21 made which became a showpiece of the expedition: the stock of
22 the pneumatic rifle served as an air reservoir to shoot its .31
23 caliber bullet, producing no smoke and little noise and using no
24 black powder, an astounding innovation during an era when "keep
25 your powder dry" was a hallmark admonition to outdoorsmen; and
26 WHEREAS, After obtaining more equipment, including his iron
27 frame boat, from the United States Army Arsenal in Harpers
28 Ferry, Virginia, and hiring a wagon and horses in Fredericktown,
29 Maryland, Meriwether Lewis traveled with his second wagon
30 through Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and finally reached Redstone
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1 Old Fort (now Brownsville, Fayette County); and
2 WHEREAS, Meriwether Lewis arrived in Pittsburgh on July 15,
3 1803, where he received a letter from President Thomas Jefferson
4 informing him that the United States had acquired the Louisiana
5 Purchase from France; and
6 WHEREAS, On August 31, 1803, Meriwether Lewis departed
7 Pittsburgh at 10 a.m. in a pirogue and a 55-foot masted keelboat
8 built either by Captain John Walker at the Bayard's boat yard in
9 Elizabeth, or by Eliphalet Beebe at a boatyard operated by John
10 Tarascon and James Berthoud on land owned by William Greenough,
11 near what is now the north end of the Liberty Bridge in
12 Pittsburgh; and
13 WHEREAS, After launching the crafts with a party of 11 men,
14 Meriwether Lewis traveled three miles down the Ohio River to
15 Brunot Island where he demonstrated his air rifle, and then
16 proceeded downriver to McKees Rock, where the water had fallen
17 so low that the crew was forced to raise the boat for 30 yards;
18 and
19 WHEREAS, Meriwether Lewis and his party continued downriver
20 until the pirogue began to leak, forcing him to purchase a canoe
21 at Georgetown, Beaver County, before continuing to Wheeling,
22 West Virginia, where supplies from Pittsburgh were loaded; and
23 WHEREAS, On October 15, 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William
24 Clark met in Louisville, Kentucky, and continued their
25 expedition west with their Corps of Discovery on a quest to find
26 and map a transcontinental water route to the Pacific Ocean; and
27 WHEREAS, The expedition reached the Pacific Ocean in November
28 1805 and built Fort Clatsop on the south side of the Columbia
29 River in Oregon; and
30 WHEREAS, Meriwether Lewis returned in April 1807 to
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1 Philadelphia where he commissioned John James Barralet to paint
2 a likeness of the Great Falls of the Missouri; arranged for
3 noted horticulturist William Hamilton to propagate seeds
4 gathered in the West at the renowned greenhouses adjacent to
5 Hamilton's residence, The Woodlands; sat for a portrait painted
6 by Charles Willson Peale; worked with preeminent ornithologist
7 Alexander Wilson, who arranged the painting of four birds the
8 Corps of Discovery found in the West - Lewis's woodpecker,
9 Clark's nutcracker, the western tanager and the black-billed
10 magpie; and
11 WHEREAS, The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William
12 Clark "from sea to shining sea" mapped a western route and
13 resulted in the discovery of hundreds of species new to science
14 and collection of natural history specimens; and
15 WHEREAS, The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia
16 houses 226 of these original plant specimens, still mounted on
17 the original sheets of linen paper and labeled in the
18 handwriting of Meriwether Lewis; and
19 WHEREAS, A journal kept by Meriwether Lewis during the
20 expedition, contained in 18 small notebooks, was edited by
21 Philadelphia literary figure Nicholas Biddle, with the final
22 revision completed by Paul Allen before its publication by the
23 Philadelphia firm of Bradford and Inskeep in 1814 as "History of
24 the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark to
25 the Sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains
26 and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean"; original
27 journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are held by the
28 American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia; and
29 WHEREAS, While the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
30 currently begins at Camp River Dubois near Hartford, Illinois,
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1 and continues through 11 states, ending in Oregon, the
2 significant representation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
3 and many Pennsylvanians in the planning and preparations which
4 launched the Lewis and Clark search for the Gateway to the West
5 and in the expansion of knowledge from the expedition which is
6 recognized as a foundation of our American heritage is not
7 included in the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail; and
8 WHEREAS, The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of
9 Pennsylvania joins the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
10 in supporting the recognition of a continuous Lewis and Clark
11 National Historic Trail which would include nine additional
12 eastern states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
13 West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee and the
14 District of Columbia and would complete the story of the
15 expedition and expose a broader base of Americans to the
16 educational and cultural aspects of the expedition; therefore be
17 it
18 RESOLVED (the Senate concurring), That the General Assembly
19 of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania memorialize the Pennsylvania
20 Congressional Delegation to support legislation calling for
21 Federal approval of the extension of the Lewis and Clark
22 National Historic Trail; and be it further
23 RESOLVED, That a copy of this resolution be transmitted to
24 each member of the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation.
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