Thanks for the information. I find the subject fascinating. I was shown and read an article many years ago about Merriweather Lewis himself, his life and death, rather than the expedition. It may have been in Readers Digest. He was a very interesting character. The bulk of the article concerned his death. It laid out a conspiracy theory that he was murdered by unknown “government forces” and went into detail about the circumstances. It was illustrated with a portrait of M. Lewis in the article. The other illustration was of more interest. It was of an air rifle. Before the expedition he owned and used this air rifle himself. It was a ball reservoir rifle with an unusual trip mechanism on top of the action. The mechanism, I was told by the owner of the article , was similar to that used by Lukens on his butt reservoir rifles. Lukens and Lewis’s connections regarding the town clock, I seem to remember, were mentioned so its fair to assume that Lewis might have had the air rifle made for him by Lukens. He was definitely an airgun enthusiast
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