Published comments on Seaman's physical characteristics
No member of the Corp of Discovery — not even Meriwether Lewis, Seaman's owner — ever records any single detail of Seaman's size, weight, color, coat texture, or any other of his physical characteristics. To put it simply, we do not have any direct evidence for what Seaman looked like. Looking at illustrations of Newfoundlands from the turn of the 19th Century is as close as we can get, and that of course is only a "best guess." The historical evidence very strongly suggests Seaman may have been a Landseer, quite likely with a shorter, curlier coat than modern Newfies have, and that Seaman may have been a bit smaller and less substantial than most of today's Newfs.
The complete absence of solid evidence has not stopped modern writers and illustrators from depicting Seaman, however, and without exception Seaman is depicted as a large black Newfoundland who looks exactly like Newfs of the present day. (Indeed, some illustrations of Seaman show a large black Newf who is clearly groomed for the show ring!) Certainly such licence is understandable in illustrated works of fiction written for younger readers. Yet serious historians and writers have fallen victim to the same (unspoken) assumption that a Newf in 1803 looked just a Newf in the early 21st Century.
Even a work as recent and as thoroughly researched as Thomas C. Danisi and John C. Jackson's Meriwether Lewis (Pantheon: 2009) blithely makes the claim that "While waiting [in Pittsburgh] for the boat, it is supposed that Lewis bought a large black Newfoundland breed dog for twenty dollars. The problem of getting on the river [the keelboat Lewis had ordered was well behind schedule] must have been on his mind as he named the dog Seaman." (Ch.2) There is no evidence offered in support of this assertion regarding Seaman's color.
A more egregious example is to be found in the late historian David Lavender's The Way to the Western Sea: Lewis and Clark Across the Continent (Harper & Row, 1988). Lavender, discussing preparations for the expedition and Lewis' time in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, writes that Lewis "was relaxed as he rode on to Pittsburgh — two hundred and fifty miles in six and a half days, his new, 150-pound, black Newfoundland dog, Seaman, trotting beside his horse." Lavender footnotes this passage, but his note refers only to Seaman's name and to historian Donald Jackson's discovery that Seaman, not Scannon or Scammon, was the dog's correct name. Lavender refers elsewhere in his book to that same assumed appearance of Seaman:
At his master's bidding the big, black Newfoundland jumped into the water, caught a squirrel, crunched it to death, and brought it back. (63 - 64)
Clark . . . used his journal to call the roll of those aboard. . . . And Clark should have added the dog Seaman, who ate as much as any one of the men. (187)
So buffalo veal became, for a time, a mainstay of the thirty-two adult travellers and of Lewis's big, black Newfoundland dog. (191)
The climax came when some of them [Native Americans] lured Lewis's black Newfoundland dog away. Toll? To Lewis it looked like theft. Furious, he sent three armed men in pursuit with orders to kill if necessary — the first time (as far as the journals show) that such a command had been given concerning native peoples whom Jefferson wanted treated 'in the most friendly & conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit.' (321)
Another example comes from the foreward, written by Savoie Lottinville, to Donald Jackson's Among the Sleeping Giants: Occasional Pieces on Lewis and Clark (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1987). On p. xi Lottinville refers to "Meriwether Lewis' black Newfoundland. . . ." Jackson himself — the historian who first figured out that Lewis' dog was named Seaman, not Scannon — never falls into the same error. He does refer — and certainly the evidence supports him — at one point to Lewis' "ebullient Newfoundland dog" (1), and notes also — again, in harmony with the information we have from the journals — that "Seaman was a bold and tireless companion who loved the water but agonized when prickly pear spines lodged in the pads of his feet." (2)
To reiterate, we simply cannot know with any certainty what Seaman looked like.