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241

Lewis and Clark

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:35,000.00 - 40,000.00 USD
Lewis and Clark

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Auction Date:2012 Jun 20 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Explorers who undertook a two-year expedition in 1804 to discover a navigable route to the Pacific Ocean, in the process exploring and later describing much of the course along the Missouri River.

Two items: ALS, signed “M. Lewis,” one page, 7.5 x 5, February 10, 1802. Letter to Dolley Madison, wife of then-Secretary of State James Madison. In full: “The President through me presents his most respectful compliments to Mrs. Madison and assures her he will be very happy in the company of herself and such other ladies as Mrs. M. may think proper to bring with her this evening.” Reverse of second integral page bears an address panel in an unknown hand, “Mr. Madison.” In very good to fine condition, with text fairly light, but still completely legible, repairs to paper loss on second integral page, two vertical folds, and scattered creasing and toning.

And a very rare manuscript DS, signed “Wm Clark, Lt. Adt. Qr Mtr 4th SL,” one page, 7.25 x 9, November 12, 1794. Document headed “Whisky Return for the 4th Sub Legion for the 13th & / 14th November 1794 Inclusive,” listing 10 companies and their total amount of rations, signed at the bottom of the table by Clark. In very good condition, with show-through from docketing on reverse under Clark’s signature, a uniform shade of toning, a few small holes of paper loss, a few chips to edges, and a mild shade of toning.

President Jefferson entered the White House in 1801 as a widower, and for social occasions he relied on friend Dolley Madison, the wife of his secretary of state, as his hostess. A childhood friend of Jefferson’s in Virginia, Lewis served as the President’s private secretary, performing a wide range of duties which included organizing the president’s social calendar and arranging elegant dinner parties, one of which he is likely addressing in this letter. In 1804, Jefferson chose his old friend to lead a transcontinental expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase for both scientific knowledge and to identify potentially beneficial economic resources.

Three years after beginning his military career, Clark was assigned to the 4th Sub-Legion and became involved in several Indian skirmishes during the Northwest Indian War. In 1794, just three months before signing this document, he successfully commanded a company of riflemen at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, bringing the Northwest Indian War to a close and ending major hostilities in the region until Tecumseh’s War 15 years later. Two years after this battle, Clark resigned from the military and returned to his family’s plantation in Kentucky where he remained until being invited to share command of the newly formed Corps of Discovery by Lewis in 1803. It is very desirable and difficult to find items from both explorers presented together.
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