Ink and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Of all the items purchased by Captain Lewis in preparation of the great westward journey, few would be more valuable than a simple, every-day item: ink. Without ink, paper, and pens, the detailed record of the Expedition wouldn’t be available to us today.

While most people imagine bottles of liquid ink being packed away on the keelboat, the ink purchased by Meriwether Lewis was actually of a different type. It was dry ink, likely in the form of sticks, which would be scraped with a knife into a small, portable inkwell, then dissolved with an appropriate amount of water. Some historians believe the ink was packaged as a powder, such as shown in this display at the Durham Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.

This meant that ink was likely mixed almost daily, especially when conditions such as heat or cold affected the water-based product. William Clark commented in his journal in early September 1806, “I am obliged to replenish my ink Stand every day with fresh ink at least 9/10 of which must evaperate.” And there were likely many days such as the one in 1805 when Meriwether Lewis noted, "the ink freizes in my pen."