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Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764–1831) was known by various titles: doctor, senator, professor, representative, and husband. An avid and prolific letter writer to his wife, Catherine Akerly Mitchill, some of his most beautiful and descriptive letters were about Meriwether Lewis. He worked seven months a year in Washington, DC, and the other five on North Hempstead, Long Island, a seaside nook a few miles from New York City. Mitchill spent his personal hours at home working as an editor, analyzing chemistry formulas, and tending to his wife, Catherine, and their two daughters.

Information about Mitchill was difficult to obtain, and it was only because I was eager to enliven and dig deeper into the story of Meriwether Lewis that I have this information at all. Historian John Jackson said that unless new information was presented in our coauthored Meriwether Lewis biography, it would not be worth writing. I had already spent four years tracking clues and facts on Lewis's longstanding physical illness, but finding additional new information felt like a daunting task.

I thought of Mahlon Dickerson, a close friend of Lewis's. Perhaps there was more about him that historian Donald Jackson had failed to uncover. However, the Dickerson Papers were in New Jersey and I guessed that a lot of money would be spent for a small return. I considered other friends of Lewis and his brother Reuben. I thought of many individuals, but most did not have a known “collection of papers,” and the rest did not write about Lewis.

About the time that I started to worry about uncovering some truly new material that would reveal the personal side of Lewis, a faint thought persistently reminded me of a Frederick Bates letter. Bates had been the territorial secretary of the Louisiana Territory and Lewis's archenemy.1 A month after Lewis's death, Bates had written to his brother, scoffing at Lewis because “he had been spoiled by the elegant praises of Mitchell & Barlow.”² While familiar with Joel Barlow's ode to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I had no idea of Lewis's connection to Mitchill.³

Years earlier, I had found a couple of letters praising James MacKay's explorations for the Spanish.⁴ Those letters were printed in the Medical Repository, the leading scientific journal founded and edited by Samuel Latham Mitchill.⁵ The more I dug, the more I found, and in October 2004, I made a trip to the Museum of the City of New York to examine the Samuel Latham Mitchill collection.⁶

I made a chronological wish list of his letters because, in the event that it would be difficult to read his handwriting, I had to prioritize what I thought were the most important years.⁷ Within moments of putting on the white gloves and opening the December 1806 case, I learned that his handwriting, thankfully, was readable.

It was well-known that Lewis arrived in Washington, DC, after the completion of his western exploration, late in the day of December 28, 1806, so I started reading the letters beginning a few days before.⁸ Initially, they offered no mention of Lewis, but the Mitchill letter dated December 30 revealed exciting news:

Capt. Lewis has reached this place after the performance of a journey across the Continent of North America, quite across to the Pacific Ocean, and back again. The distance is computed to be considerably more than three thousand miles across. He and his party went away from Washington in the Summer of 1803, and…got no farther than Kahokia on the Mississippi, and wintered there. The ensuing spring, he reached Mandane, near the great Bend of the Missouri and passed the cold season at that place (1804–5). Thence he proceeded westward, and crossing the Northern Andes…travelled before the Vigorous Weather set in, as far as the Ocean, near the mouth of the Columbia River. Here he remained during the inclement part of 1805–6; and as soon as the spring was far enough advanced…he started for home. And here, he is…in good health & spirits. I feel rejoiced on his own account; an account of Geography & Natural History; and on account of the Character and Honour of Country that this expedition has been successfully performed.⁹

Mitchill must have been near or in the presidential mansion when Lewis arrived, for this letter was three pages long and filled with details of the expedition and other interesting events going on in Washington for the holiday festivities. Mitchill biographer Alan D. Aberbach described President Jefferson and Dr. Mitchill as having the curiosity of little children and said they “listened for hours as Lewis reported on his tale of hardship and success.”¹⁰

Mitchill had become a member of the legislature of New York in 1790 and was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1801. He became a senator in November 1804 and remained in that capacity until 1813, when he decided to return to New York and attend to scientific pursuits.11 His first observation of Thomas Jefferson occurred about a month after Mitchill's initial arrival in Washington:

He is tall in stature and rather spare in flesh. His dress and manners are very plain; he is grave, or rather sedate, but without any tincture of pomp, ostentation, or pride, and occasionally can smile, and both hear and relate humorous stories as well as any other man of social feelings. At this moment he has a rather more than ordinary press of care and solicitude, because Congress is in session and he is anxious to know in what manner the Representatives will act upon his Message.¹²

For the twelve years that he resided in Washington, Mitchill wrote almost daily to his wife. She visited him infrequently—with two daughters it was difficult to make the trip from New York to the nation's capital.¹³ In March 1806, she made a trip to Washington and had an awkward encounter with President Thomas Jefferson. At the conclusion of a church service in the House of Representatives, she accidentally stepped on his toes and was “so prodigiously frighten'd,” she told her sister, “that I could not stop to make an apology, but got out of the way as quick as I could.”¹⁴ Catherine's letters to her sister also described the latest news. In August 1807, she wrote that her husband, “Sam,” had accompanied Robert Fulton on the maiden voyage of his steamboat in New York harbor. “An ingenious piece of workmanship,” Catherine remarked. She was surprised how fast the steamboat moved through the water “with the tide against her.”¹⁵

Catherine lived in a wondrous and fortunate time and enjoyed the additional benefit of being married to man with a consuming hunger for knowledge. A witty friend once stated, “Tap the doctor at any time, he will flow.”¹⁶ The House of Representatives referred to him as the “Stalking Library,” Thomas Jefferson called him the “Congressional Dictionary,” and to his admirers he was known as the “Nestor of American Science.”¹⁷

He first encountered Lewis when he was the “Master of Ceremonies” at an assembly on December 21, 1801, and formally met him at a dinner at the presidential mansion in January of 1802. Jefferson had “generally a company of eight or ten to dine with him every day. The dinners are neat and plentiful, and no healths are drunk at table nor any toasts or sentiments given after dinner.” At this first dinner, seven were invited, and the “[p]resident and his secretary, Captain Lewis, completed the party.”¹⁸ By April 29, Mitchill had become a select member of the dinner party of regulars. Afterward, Mitchill said that he accompanied Lewis into the “[p]resident's Council Chamber,” and “saw two…Busts of Indian Hatuary, lately found near the Mississippi. I did not know until I saw these that sculpture had advanced so far among the Native red-men of North America.”19

Mitchill wrote some of the most interesting descriptions of Lewis later, and he never lost an opportunity to write a review in the Medical Repository regarding Lewis and Clark's accomplishments.²⁰

Legislative historians have struggled for years to understand why there were no written records of the inauguration of what today is called the Lewis and Clark Expedition. All that exists in the congressional files is mention that Jefferson delivered a secret message to Congress on January 18, 1803, and Congress approved a ten- to twelve-man expedition on February 26, 1803.²¹ Discovery of Mitchill's letter to his wife dated January 31, 1803, finally enhanced those records. He began with:

My Dear Kate: I write you from a secret conclave of Congress…the House of Representatives is now setting with closed doors. The Galleries were cleared a little while ago to receive a confidential communication. After receiving it, a Debate arose whether it ought to be considered as a secret any longer or whether the Injunction of Secrecy should be taken off. And that discussion is now going on. So I thought I would write you, my dear, a few lines to let you know…something about this Political Secret, was I not restrained by my own decision because I have just set down after making a Speech against taking off the Injunction of Secrecy. You must however not imagine any thing about it, nor pretend to suppose that a secret expedition is meditated up the river Missouri to its source, thence across the Northern Andes and down the Western water-courses to the Pacific Ocean, and that the reason of keeping it secret is that the English and Spaniards may not find it out and frustrate it.²²

Mitchill had sworn to secrecy, probably on a stack of Bibles, but could not help himself and told his wife anyway! What a treasure for the Lewis and Clark archives.

On January 11, 1807, Mitchill dined alone with Lewis and wrote to his wife:

During the expedition, communications…and productions of the country were…forwarded to the President. Where that mode of intercourse was not possible, the articles collected were…brought home by the adventurers in person. They achieved so much, that I told Lewis…shortly after his return to Washington, when he dined with me, I looked upon him…as a man arrived from another planet.²³

Five days later Mitchill sent Catherine an elaborate letter. A short excerpt follows:

A few evenings ago, I went to the Presidents House to see the specimens of Natural History brought by Capt. Lewis from Louisiana, and his Map of the regions he has visited between the Mississippi and the Pacific. He has several non-descript animals…. He has brought with him the seeds of many plants; and shewed me several presses…in fine preservation. These make an instructive herbarium of the Regions to which he passed…. But his Map of those parts of North America is the most instructive of his bounties…. The distance from the Source of the Missouri to its junction with the Gulf of Mexico is computed to be more than 4000 miles and it runs the greater part of this distance without a Cataract.24

On February 18, 1807, Mitchill met William Clark at one of Jefferson's dinners.

After the adjournment, I went to dine with Mr. Jefferson. There I found Capt. Clarke the traveller to the Pacific Ocean. He is a fine-looking soldierly man, and very conversant with the North American Indians. My seat at the table was between the President and him. So of course I could converse, by turns, with each. I improved the opportunity to inquire of Capt. C. concerning the manners and Customs of the native tribes he had visited on the Missouri.²⁵

It is almost indescribable how the Samuel Latham Mitchill papers have augmented and expanded the record of Lewis and Clark's “bounties.” They originated with one man who was easily Thomas Jefferson's scientific equal and who excitedly shared them with the scientific and geographical community. Descriptive letter writing is a disappearing art. Some corners of the past remain dark and unknown for lack of such letters, while others are illuminated and brought to life because of a single dedicated correspondent. Some faithful letter writers, such as Mitchill, are located in important places at crucial times in history and record exciting facts and observations mixed in with the more mundane descriptions of family life and personal incidents.