The Lewis and Clark
Expedition
Nicholas King (1771-1812) with
annotations by Meriwether Lewis
(1774-1809)
[Map of Western North America]
Manuscript map on paper, 1803
Geography & Map Division
Thomas Jefferson to
Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809)
Press copy in the hand of
Jefferson, June 20, 1803
Page 2
Manuscript Division
Samuel Lewis
A Map of Lewis and Clark's Track
Across the Western Portion of
North America from Mississippi
to the Pacific Ocean.
Philadelphia:1814
Printed map
Geography & Map Division
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In June 1803, President Thomas Jefferson wrote
to Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), his private secretary and a U.S.
army captain, instructing the expedition to explore the Missouri
basin by crossing over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
Among the Library's significant collection of manuscripts and
published maps documenting the expedition of Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark (1770-1838) to the Pacific Northwest between
1800 and 1803 are published maps issued with the final reports
of the expedition, interim composite maps showing the progress
of the expedition, and maps used or consulted in planning the
expedition.
The example shown here is a composite map drawn
in 1803 by Nicholas King, a War Department copyist, from published
and manuscript sources, at the request of Thomas Jefferson and
Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. The map reflects the
geographical concepts of government leaders on the eve of the
expedition. It is believed that Lewis and Clark carried this map
on the expedition, at least as far as the Mandan-Hidasta villages
on the Missouri River, where Lewis annotated in brown ink additional
information obtained from fur traders. This map, as well as twelve
other manuscript maps, which are thought to have belonged to William
Clark, was transferred to the Library of Congress in 1925 from
the Office of Indian Affairs.
Among the Library's original maps documenting the
expedition (1803-06) of Lewis and William Clark are published
maps issued with the final reports of the expedition, as well
as planning maps and those actually carried with them. This 1814
map was the first composite map to report the expedition's discoveries.
One of the reasons the Lewis and Clark expedition
succeeded in traversing the northwestern portion of North America
and reaching the Pacific Ocean was because the leaders meticulously
consulted the best cartographic sources that were available at
the beginning of the nineteenth century to create a composite
image of the geography of the western portion of North America.
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