Lewis and Clark in
Boone County, Kentucky

On September 28, 1803, Meriwether Lewis and his party reached Cincinnati. The party was weary from their 500-mile trip down the Ohio River so they slowed down a bit and spent a few days in Cincinnati. There, Lewis wrote a lengthy letter to Thomas Jefferson, detailing his activities in and around Cincinnati. Lewis described an excavation conducted in May, 1803, at Big Bone Lick by Cincinnati physician Dr. William Goforth, who was keenly interested in the fossil remains of mammoth and mastodon. In his letter to Jefferson, Lewis described Dr. Goforth's collections - both those in Cincinnati and those still at Big Bone Lick.

Thomas Jefferson had known of Big Bone Lick for decades and had even received a tooth from the site through George Rogers Clark in 1781. In a November, 1782, letter to George Rogers Clark, Jefferson states his desire for additional fossils from the site, saying that "a specimen of each of the several species of bones now to be found is to me the most desirable object in Natural History." President Jefferson promoted the Corps of Discovery as a means for finding an all water route to the Pacific and a way to establish trade with Native Americans in the west. Jefferson also believed that huge mammals like the mammoth may still live in the remote western regions of western North America. In fact, he gave Lewis and Clark specific instructions to be on the lookout for evidence of such animals on their voyage.

When Meriwether Lewis came through Cincinnati in 1803, he had already been directed by Thomas Jefferson to meet with Dr. Goforth and visit Big Bone Lick with the goal of obtaining the bones of giant mammals. Although he was a product of the Age of Enlightenment, Jefferson's keen interest in these animals and their remains goes far beyond the goals of scientific inquiry. For the third President of the newly formed United States, these bones were critical to American national identity. Proving their existence and origin would give America an ancient past and demonstrated prehistory, based on nature and scientific principles. These bones were viewed as America's equivalent to the ancient Greek and Roman ruins of Europe!

On October 1, 1803, Meriwether Lewis sent his men and the keelboat down river from Cincinnati to Big Bone Lick. Anticipating that the 53-mile trip would take 3 days by water, Lewis traveled the 17-mile overland route on horseback. The last few miles of Lewis' overland trip closely follow the modern route of Big Bone Road in Boone County. Lewis sent Jefferson several specimens from Big Bone Lick, including a large tusk, several "grinders" (molars), and "such other specimens as I may be enabled to procure." In the spring of 1804, the bones were sent down river, but were eventually lost when the boat sank at Natchez, Mississippi. The frustrating loss of these specimens, in part, compelled Jefferson to send William Clark back to Big Bone Lick in 1807.