Lewis and Clark Expedition maps and receipt

The Lewis and Clark Expedition Maps consist of 83 manuscript maps and related material on 66 sheets, dating from ca. 1803 to 1810. Nine of the maps (including one of Vancouver's Island and the region of Nootka Sound that appears to be in the hand of Lewis) were copied or otherwise obtained by Lewis and Clark in preparation for their expedition (folders 1, 4-9, 11, and 52). Many of these were annotated during the expedition. Two of the maps were drawn based on information supplied by the Mandan leader Big White, also known as Sheheke, at Fort Mandan during the winter of 1804-1805 (folder 10, r and v). Seventy of the maps, several of which include information supplied by Native Americans, were drawn by Clark in the field (folders 3v, 12-51, 53-65). Finally, two of the maps (folders 2 and 66) were prepared by Clark after the expedition's return. The map in folder 2, which Reuben Gold Thwaites mistakenly described as a pre-expeditionary map, is a virtual copy of a part of the map in folder 66, Clark's master map of the West which he drafted in 1810. 51" x 29" in size, the map incorporates information not only from the Lewis and Clark expedition but also from the travels of Zebulon Pike, George Drouillard, and John Colter. The map was the source for the smaller, engraved map published with Biddle's edition of the Lewis and Clark journals in 1814. The master map was returned to Clark who later added information from such travellers as Wilson Price Hunt, Andrew Henry, and possibly Ramsay Crooks. Three of the maps were drawn on the back of paper used for other purposes. Thus the collection includes a manuscript list of supplies for the expedition and two copies of a printed form intended to be distributed to Indian leaders who assisted the expedition.

These maps were kept in the Clark family after the majority of material from the expedition had been placed at the American Philosophical Society or the Missouri Historical Society. Reuben Gold Thwaites learned of the existence of the maps while working on an edition of the Lewis and Clark journals in 1903. Thwaites obtained permission from Julia Clark Voorhis and Eleanor Glasgow Voorhis to publish most of the maps as 53 numbered plates in the atlas that accompanied his Original Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, published in 1904-1905 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company). Thwaites found various of the Voorhis maps pasted together, creating continuous maps of several parts of the journey. The size of the multi-sheet map caused Thwaites to reproduce them in multiple plates. Eighty years later, as Gary E. Moulton prepared a new edition of the Lewis & Clark journals, he determined that the pasted arrangement obscured original data and that the joining of sheets was clearly a postexpeditionary event. The Library decided to separate the sheets, which were then photographed for reproduction in the Moulton atlas.

The maps are arranged in the sequence of the Thwaites atlas. The folder descriptions in this listing, however, are taken from Gary E. Moulton's atlas, except for those maps not included in Moulton: in those cases the Thwaites description is used. Each folder number represents a separate sheet. In the case of those sheets with a map on both the recto and verso, the single sheet has two separate entries distinguished by a "r" or "v" after a folder number, indicating the recto or verso of the sheet. In addition to the listing by box and folder number, there is an appendix providing a concordance for Moulton numbers and box and folder numbers.