[Clark] had all of our Skins &c. Suned and Stored away in a Storeroom of Mr. Caddy Choteau. payed Some visits of form, to the gentlemen of St. Louis. in the evening a dinner & Ball
Clark makes a good effort towards preserving the many specimens they had returned with. Most of them were still wet from the long river trip and they were properly dried and stored in a room provided my Jean Pierre Chouteau.
The celebration Clark speaks of was held at William Christy's tavern. According to journal records a total of eighteen toasts were drunk, the first to President Jefferson "The friend of science, the polar star of discovery, the philosopher and the patriot," and ending with "Captains Lewis and Clark—Their perilous services endear them to every American heart." One is forced to wonder how well, after seventeen quaffs, the last toast was executed. Evidently the long period of the Party's forced abstention didn't diminish their capacities very much.