History of the Journals

1807 Gass Journal
Sergeant Patrick Gass’s account was the first to be published in 1807: A Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps of Discovery. The version edited by Carol Lynn MacGregor contains a biography of Gass, one of the expedition’s most popular members, then and now, and his account books from later years.

1814 Lewis and Clark Journals, Biddle Edition
The journal accounts written by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were finally published as The History of the Expedition Under the Commands of Captains Lewis and Clark, by Nicholas Biddle in 1814. The Biddle edition is available in paperback and hardcover from www.digitalscanning.com. To read it online go to the Library of Congress American Memory/The Ohio River Valley

1893 Lewis and Clark Journals, Coues Edition
In 1893 Elliott Coues (“Cows”) published a new version of the Biddle edition with extensive commentary. Coues was an army naturalist and surgeon, and an ornithologist. He included the scientific information which had been omitted from the Biddle edition. The Coues edition, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, is available online at University of Virginia’s American Studies.

1905 Expedition Journals, Thwaites Edition
In 1905, during the centennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Reuben Gold Thwaites published The Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-1806 in eight volumes, including both an Atlas and the Journals of Charles Floyd and Joseph Whitehouse. This edition is available in paperback and hardcover from www.digitalscanning.com

1953 Discovery of William Clark’s Field Notes
The story of how William Clark’s field notes were discovered in an old desk in St. Paul,Minnesota is told in A History of the Lewis and Clark Journals by Paul Russell Cartwright, published in 1976. The notes were published as The Field Notes of Captain William Clark 1803-1805, edited by Ernest S. Osgood, now out of print. To read them online go to Yale University Beinecke Library Western Americana Collection

1983-2001 Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Moulton Edition
In 1983, the first volume of the Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, an oversized Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was published by the University of Nebraska Press under the editorship of Professor Gary E. Moulton. The decades-long work was sponsored by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. The final volume of the 13 volume series, a Comprehensive Index, was published in the year 2001.

2002-2004 Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark, Nebraska Edition
The paperback edition, minus the Atlas, of the Moulton Edition was published in 2002-2004. These are the books available through our website.

Original Journals
Eighteen small notebook journals written by Lewis and Clark are in the collection of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Some are placed on exhibit each summer. American Philosophical Society

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