Woodbury Lowery Collection

Woodbury Lowery's maps and papers relating to Spanish colonies in North America

In 1907, through the bequest of Woodbury Lowery (1853-1906), Washington patent lawyer and historian, the Library acquired a study collection of 300 original and facsimile maps relating to former Spanish possessions within the United States. Notes compiled by Lowery on 750 manuscript and printed maps in American and European archives were later assembled as a catalog by Philip Lee Phillips. The Library has added copies or reproductions of most of the items described in this bibliography. Seventy-six of the maps dating from 1750 to 1790 are recorded in the Library's computerized map catalog.

The Manuscript Division has eighteen volumes of Lowery's notes and transcripts. Over half the material pertains to the early history of Florida--the subject of the second of the two published volumes of Lowery's The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1905. 500 p. F314.L91)--and the remainder to New Mexico, California, Texas, and Louisiana. The collection is recorded in the division's master record of manuscript collections.