Click to Enlarge People used quills for writing for about 1,000 years. It's still fun to write with a quill pen, especially if the feathers tickle your nose as you make your letters.   Writing with Lewis and Clark by Martha Daniels illustration by Michael Haynes photography by Cliff White Get out your quill and ink and write along with adventurers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. You just talked with the President of the United States. He wants you to explore a new land out west, beyond the Mississippi River. Here's your assignment: 1. Find out what the native people are like. Record their languages and customs. 2. Bring back lots of details about the plants, animals and rocks you find. Also, describe the land. 3. See if the native people want to begin trading. In 1803, long before your grandparents were born, President Thomas Jefferson gave that very assignment to Captain Meriwether Lewis. He told Captain Lewis, "Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy, to be entered distinctly and intelligibly for others as well as yourself." The President also told Lewis how important it was for him to return alive so that others could read his writings. I'll bet Lewis didn't argue about that. At that time, this new land was called the Louisiana Purchase. President Jefferson bought it from France for $15 million, and it contained what later became Missouri. Problem was, nobody knew anything about it. Very little of it had even been mapped, except for the locations of St. Louis and the Missouri River up to what is now North Dakota. People of the time believed that the explorers would find unicorns, woolly mastodons and seven-foot-long beavers. President Jefferson wanted to know exactly what he'd bought, so he appointed Captain Lewis to find out. So, pretend you're Captain Lewis. Here's the catch: Since you've been transported back to 1803, you won't have a camera, a pen or even a typewriter. You have to write everything with a quill, ink and paper. Lewis and Clark had help from other members of their "Corps of Discovery." A total of six people on the journey kept journals. Together they wrote more than a million words-all on paper with their quill pens and powdered ink. Lewis was well educated for his time. He had learned reading, writing, math, science and Latin. As a gentleman, he had also learned other important skills, such as horsemanship, hunting, dancing, boxing and fiddle-playing. Before he left on the expedition, Lewis also studied medicine, navigation, astronomy (stars), botany (plants) and biology. Clark was not as educated and did not write as well as Lewis, but he knew many other important skills for surviving in the wilderness. He was an engineer and geographer and made maps of the journey. Six or seven of the men in the team also could write. They were well-informed men who kept up-to-date on the politics, scientific discoveries and news of the country. That was hard to do back in the days before radio, TV and the Internet. Clark definitely would not have passed a spelling test today, and his grammar would have made your teacher faint. In one entry, he even referred to the nation as the "Untied States." His journals are written in the language and spellings common to his time. And we can give him a little slack since there were no such things as dictionaries, at least not as we know them. On June 17, 1804, the expedition was in western Missouri when Clark wrote, "The Countrey about this place is butifull on the river rich & well timbered about two miles back a Prairie coms which is rich and interspursed with groves of timber, Prairie coms. In the bank of the river and continus back, well watered and abounds in Deer Elk & Bear The Ticks & Musquiters are verry troublesome." The words seem funny to us today, but we can still understand them. (Can you correct his spelling?) Many words have different meanings now, and some aren't used anymore. Still, their journals tell us about the wonderful adventures they had and the people they met. The only member of the Corps to write in his journal each day was John Ordway, who was taken along to help write about the trip. He wrote every day for 863 days. The Journals Lewis and Clark's crew had leather-bound journals with paper pages. The pages were bound in elk skin and red leather cases to help protect them. Paper was precious back then, and they took great pains to keep it safe and dry. Quills For writing, Lewis, Clark and other people of their time would trim the tip of a goose or turkey wing feather. These are called quills. Quills were the writing tools of the new nation. They were used even through the Civil War. To make a fine tip, writers would dip it in hot water to soften it. This made the tip flexible, like a fingernail. By slicing the hollow stem at a slant, then cleaning out the pith and shaping the tip with a split in the middle, they could make a workable pen. To make the quill harder, they dipped it in warm sand. A quill wears out after a few days of use, so Lewis and Clark were constantly making new ones. Some people peeled or cut off part of the plume to keep the feather out of their way and keep the plume out of the ink. Ink Lewis and Clark started off with their own supply of ink. It was packed in a powder form, and they turned it to liquid by adding water. They only mixed as much as they needed at one time. Several easy substitutes were used for making ink on the frontier. One simple method is by mixing egg whites, ashes or charcoal and honey with a small amount of water. You can also make ink by soaking walnut hulls in water and straining out the stained liquid. Vinegar was added to help the ink set. Other plant juices, such as indigo, have been used as ink for centuries. Writing with a Quill The most important tip to remember when using a quill is to write lightly. It's tempting to press hard, but the proper way is to barely scratch the paper. Handwriting in the 1800s was very flowing and fancy. Moving the quill so much helped keep the ink flowing and made writing easier. In that way, it's more like painting than writing with a pen or pencil. Practice making some loops and turns to get the feel of it. Try to get only a little ink in your quill. You want enough to write just a few letters or one word at a time. Scrape off any excess ink before you place the quill on the paper. Try not to rush the wet ink. It sometimes takes a few minutes to dry. Remember, writing with a quill and ink is messy. Wear old clothes and be prepared for some fingers stained with ink. Now that you know how to write with a quill and ink, take off on your assignment and try making a journal of your own. Date your writings, just as Lewis and Clark did. Describe the weather, what your camp (or home) looks like and what strange animals and plants you find in the backyard. Unlike Lewis and Clark, however, try to spell correctly.