A Book’s Grand Expedition: Lewis and Clark’s Borrowed Treasure

May 9, 1807

On this day, a book embarked on its final journey, returning home after an adventure that would make even the hardiest of explorers green with envy.

This tome, dear readers, was none other than The History of Louisiana by Antoine le Page, borrowed by Meriwether Lewis from the esteemed Benjamin Smith Barton.

Picture, if you will, the scene in June 1803. Lewis, on the cusp of his great expedition, paying a visit to Barton's home.

Can you imagine the anticipation crackling in the air?

The weight of the impending journey hanging heavy between them?

As Lewis prepared to depart, Barton, in a gesture of scholarly camaraderie, pressed the book into his hands.

Little did that humble volume know the wonders it was about to witness.

From the banks of the Mississippi to the shores of the Pacific, it traveled in the saddlebags of history.

One can only wonder at the tales it could tell, had it a voice to speak.

Upon its return, Lewis, ever the gentleman, memorialized the book's grand tour with an inscription that would make any librarian's heart flutter.

In the flyleaf, he penned these words:

Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton was so obliging as to lend me this copy of Mons. le Page's History of Louisiana in June 1803.

It has been since conveyed by me to the Pacific ocean through the interior of North America on my late tour thither and is now returned to its proprietor by his friends and obedient servant,

Meriwether Lewis.

Philadelphia, May 9, 1807.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Barton received his well-traveled book!

Can you imagine his delight?

His fingers tracing the inscription, his mind racing with thoughts of the journey it had undertaken?

And what of the book itself?

If books could speak, surely this one would have tales to rival Lewis and Clark's own journals.

Of nights spent by campfires, of perilous river crossings, of encounters with creatures never before seen by European eyes.

So, dear gardeners, the next time you borrow a book from a friend, consider the adventure you might be sending it on.

For who knows?

Perhaps, like Barton's copy of The History of Louisiana, it might return to you with stories etched not just on its pages, but in its very being.

And let us take a moment to appreciate the meticulous record-keeping of these great explorers.

For without Lewis's thoughtful inscription, this charming anecdote might have been lost to the annals of history, like a rare seed carried away by the wind.