| Thomas Parker
Of all the expenses involved in outfitting the Lewis and Clark expedition, the most spent on a single item was paid to a Philadelphia clockmaker.
Thomas Parker owned a clock and watchmaking shop on on South Third Street. When Meriwether Lewis came to the city after visiting Andrew Ellicott and Robert Patterson to study navigation, he stopped at Parker's shop. Lewis then spent $250 for a chronometer, the largest amount spent on any single item the expedition carried.
After Lewis bought the chronometer, he sent it back to Lancaster for Ellicott to regulate. He included this note:
| "I have at length been enabled to procure a Chronometer which you will receive by the hands of Mr. Barton who has been so obliging as to take charge of her, you will also receive with her a screw-driver and kee, the in[n]er cases of the Chronometer are confined by a screw. She is wound up and the works are stoped by inserting a hog's bristle which you will discover by examineation. She has been cleaned by Mr. Voit, and her rate of going ascertained by observation to be 14" too slow in 24h." |
So $250 later, the expedition was armed with a sensitive instrument that lost 14 seconds each day. All thanks to Thomas Parker.
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