“We learn that a part of the collection of the curiosities collected by Captain Lewis on the Missouri, has reached Baltimore.”
— Universal Gazette (D.C.), August 22, 1805

A year before the formal United States acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, President Jefferson sent a confidential letter to Congress on January 18, 1803 to fund $2,500 for a scientific expedition up the Missouri River to open a passage to the Pacific. While historians and the media have focused on the historic journey from St. Louis to the Pacific, little is known of the Baltimore connection regarding the valuable shipment that was sent eastward.

The Shipment from Fort Mandan

On April 3, 1805, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark prepared to leave their camp at Fort Mandan at the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers for the Upper Missouri. The expedition spent their days packing their shipment of “curiosities” collected so far to be forwarded to President Jefferson in Washington. The shipment consisted of 4 boxes, 2 large trunks and 5 cages containing a variety of scientific observations, maps, a Mandan bow and quiver, botanical specimens, animal skins, and a live prairie dog.

On April 7, 1805, Captain Lewis sent four men and two interpreters under Corporal Richard Warfington down the Missouri from Fort Mandan to St. Louis. Here Captain Amos Stoddard, Captain Lewis’ agent, was responsible for forwarding the shipment to New Orleans then to Washington, via the Gulf Coast to the Chesapeake.

The Journey to Baltimore

The Orleans Gazette informed its readers: “The curiosities sent by Captains Lewis and Clark, to the president of the United States, were received by Governor Claiborne, some days ago—they were put on board the Comet, Captain McNeil, who sailed yesterday for Baltimore. The animals and birds, were in good health.”

The Baltimore-built Comet, described as “a strong, fast-sailing vessel, and in all respects well found; burthen 197 tons,” carried the cargo of “curiosities” along with 120 hogsheads of “fine New Orleans sugar.” Captain John McNeil departed New Orleans on July 23rd for Baltimore, 1,750 nautical miles away. After a fifteen-day passage they arrived in the Patapsco River on August 10th off Fort McHenry.

Arrival at Fort McHenry

Across from the Fort on the opposite shore lay the Lazaretto Quarantine Station (est. 1801) for vessels arriving from out of the country. Dr. William Stewart, Baltimore’s Public Health Officer, maintained his office at Philip Schwartzauer’s Tavern outside the military boundary gate of Fort McHenry. Upon checking the crew and shipment, the Comet was allowed to proceed to the Fell’s Point waterfront wharf of Thorndike Chase at Thames and Philpot Streets on August 12th.

Robert Purviance, Port Collector of Baltimore, engaged a local wagon drayer, Nathaniel Peck, to take the shipment to the White House for a payment of $12.00, arriving on August 14, 1805 and placed under the care of the President’s house manager-steward, Mr. Etienne Lemaire.

The Inventory

The following is an extract of the invoice of articles forwarded from Fort Mandan to the President:

• Box 1: Skins of male and female Antelope with skeletons; horns and ears of Black-tail deer; Martin skin containing weasel and three small squirrels of the Rocky Mountains; skeletons of burrowing wolf; a Mandan bow with quiver of arrows containing seed of Mandan tobacco
• Box 2: Four buffalo robes and an ear of Mandan corn
• Box 3: Skins of male and female Antelope with skeletons; skin of a brown or yellow bear
• Box 4: Specimens of earths, salts, and minerals (numbered 1-67); specimens of plants (numbered 1-60); one earthen pot of Mandan manufacture; a tin box containing insects and mice; specimens of plants prized by Natives as remedy for rattlesnake bite
• Large Trunk: Skins of burrowing dog of the prairies; red fox skins; four horns of mountain ram; a buffalo robe painted by a Mandan man representing a battle fought eight years prior between the Sioux and Ricaras against the Mandans
• Cage 6: Four living magpies
• Cage 7: A living burrowing squirrel of the prairie
• Cage 9: One living hen of the prairie
• Cage 10: A large pair of elk’s horns connected by the frontal bone

The Legacy

The long four-month navigable journey from Fort Mandan down the Missouri, the Mississippi to New Orleans and finally Baltimore was some 4,500 miles. Lewis and Clark reached St. Louis at noon on September 23, 1806, thus ending the Corps of Discovery’s epic adventure.

When Jefferson returned to Washington in October he designated the shipment to be divided among three sites: Rembrandt Peale’s Natural History Museum and the American Philosophical Society, both in Philadelphia, and his Virginia home at Monticello. Unfortunately, with Jefferson’s death in 1826, his “Indian Hall” collection had by the 20th century been lost, mislaid, or redistributed. Today, only the elk antlers have survived at Monticello. The major repository of the surviving shipment resides at the Harvard University Peabody Museum.

Today, the site of Thorndike Chase’s wharf is a National Historic Landmark at Fell’s Point, adjacent to the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Park.

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Within the War of 1812 galleries of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore is artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s famous panorama on canvas painting entitled The Bombardment of Fort McHenry, Sept. 13-14, 1814. It remains the quintessential War of 1812 image of the “perilous fight,” complete with the bombs bursting in air and the Star-Spangled Banner.

The Commission

On March 15, 1816, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution to have an artist execute two superb paintings: The Battle of North Point and The Bombardment of Fort McHenry, each to measure fifteen feet long by ten feet in height. The artist the committee desired was Colonel John Trumbull of Connecticut, who visited the battlegrounds and Fort McHenry. The City Council failed to commission Trumbull, likely due to the high commission he placed on his works.

In Baltimore, the Council discovered a promising eighteen-year-old artist whose local artistic talents were well known. Alfred Jacob Miller, the oldest of nine children, was born on January 2, 1810, to grocer George Washington Miller and Harriet Jacobs Miller. During the bombardment of Fort McHenry, George Miller served as a private in Captain John Berry’s Washington Artillerist, 1st Maryland Regiment of Artillery. His experiences and observations later provided his son with details of the battle.

The Painting

With an agreeable commission, eighteen-year-old Alfred began his studies and sketches in the spring of 1827. The Baltimore Gazette noted:

“Among the decorations of the Saloon at Mr. Lyford’s Inn [is] a large painting representing the bombardment of Fort McHenry. It is the production of a young gentleman of Baltimore… His painting is marked by a beautiful richness of colouring, and a graphic faithfulness in the delineation of the shores of the bay, the British fleet, the smoke of the cannon, and the bombs bursting in air over the Fort.”

Miller’s Western Journey

In September 1837, Alfred accompanied Scottish adventurer Captain William Drummond Stewart to the plains and Rocky Mountains of the American West. During this venture, Miller produced his famous watercolors and oils of Native Americans, trappers, and landscapes he is known for today. Many of his works were exhibited in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York between 1858-1874, with a series of 200 watercolors illustrating his western tour commissioned by wealthy Baltimore merchant William T. Walters.

Details of the Painting

The Star-Spangled Banner (Center)

The primary focal point is the star-spangled banner, whose flagstaff rises above the brick-earthen ramparts amidst the smoke, rain, lightning and bombardment. Due to the stormy weather, the flag flying is the 17 x 25 foot storm flag. The garrison flag would not be raised until 9 a.m. September 14th, two hours after the attack ended.

Battery Babcock (Right Center)

In the center foreground is the Six Gun Battery, a semi-circular 180-foot earthen redoubt. During the bombardment it was commanded by Sailing Master John Adams Webster of the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla.

British Bombardment Squadron (Distance)

Clearly visible beyond Fort McHenry on the Patapsco River is the British squadron of twenty vessels, among which were HM bomb ships Volcano, Devastation, Etna, Meteor, and Terror.

The American Truce Vessel (Far Right)

On the distant horizon may be seen the small two-masted sloop President, one of Captain John Ferguson’s mail-passenger packets. From this position, it is clear that attorney Francis Scott Key and Colonel John S. Skinner had a clear view of the bombs and rockets, providing proof that the flag was still there.

Legacy

Today, no study and account of the Battle for Baltimore and bombardment of Fort McHenry is complete without viewing Alfred Jacob Miller’s pre-eminent painting of the naval bombardment. A replica of the painting is on view in the Visitor Center at Fort McHenry, the site of the epic bombardment. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore was one of the first institutions to dedicate an entire gallery to Miller’s works when in 1935 a large collection of 100 watercolor sketches were discovered in the old Rembrandt Peale Museum in Baltimore.

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