Jefferson’s Fourth Try

Although Thomas Jefferson was the driving force behind the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it wasn’t the first time he had proposed a “Voyage of Discovery”. In fact, prior to his secret letter to Congress in 1803, he had attempted to explore westward three times. In 1783, he tried to enlist Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark (brother to William Clark) to lead an expedition westward. In Jefferson’s letter to Clark, he wrote briefly about the importance of science, and then voiced his