Surveyors Wagon in the Rockies 1859, Albert Bierstadt
Compiled by Stuart K. Wier
Latest revision Feb 6, 2016
This is a guide to resources about early explorers of the American west, from Lewis and Clark up to the Civil War, with a focus on the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains..
You also might be interested in my more detailed web sites about the
Lewis and Clark Expedition
and the
Mountain Men
General Histories of Early Western Exploration
The Pathfinders
Zebulon Pike Expedition to Colorado in 1806-1807
Stephen H. Long Expedition of 1820
John Charles Frémont
Naturalists Out West: Botany, Zoology, Geology
Thomas Nuttal and James Kirk Townsend
Audubon
Mapmakers and Surveyors
General Histories of Early Western Exploration
DeVoto, Bernard. The Course of Empire. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952.
Goetzmann, William H. Army Exploration in the American West 1803-1863. Yale, 1959. Reprinted, with a new introduction by the author, Austin, 1991.
Focusing on the Topographical Engineers, and with a bibliographical essay about previous records and books.
Bartlett, Richardp. Great Surveys of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1962.
Goetzmann, William H. Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and Scientist in the
Winning of the American West. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Goetzmann, William H. New Lands, New Men: America and the Second Great Age of Discovery. New York, Viking 1986.
Viola, Herman J. Exploring the West. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1987.
A nice introduction, very well illustrated.
Goetzmann, William H., and Glyndwr Williams. The Atlas of North American Exploration from the
Norse Voyages to the Race to the Pole. New York: Prentice Hall, 1992.
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992.
Allen, John Logan, ed. North American Exploration. 3 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
Ronda, James P. Beyond Lewis & Clark: The Army Explores the West. Washington State Historical Society, 2003.
Bartlett, Richard A.
Great Surveys of the American West. University of Oklahoma Press 1980. The
Hayden, King, Wheeler, and Powell geological and geographical surveys after the Civil War, complete with lots of maps.
Online:
A History of the U. S. Topographical Engineers
by the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, a living history group,
Geological Surveys Before the Civil War by the USGS.
Naturalists Out West
Evans, Howard Ensign. Pioneer Naturalists:
The Discovery and Naming of North American Plants and Animals. New York: Holt 1994.
Ewan, Joseph Andorfer. Rocky Mountain Naturalists. Denver: Univ.of Denver Press.
Longer bios of James, Fremont, Parry, Greene, Porter, Patterson, Jones, Penard and Cockerell;
thumbnail sketches of about 1000 other naturalists who visited, or influenced
the study of the natural history of, the Rocky Mountains from 1682 to 1932.
Ewan, Joseph, and Ewan, Nesta. 1981. Biographical Dictionary of
Rocky Mountain Naturalists. Utrecht: Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema.
An extension and update of the thumbnail sketches above.
Peattie, Donald Culross. Green Laurels:
The Lives And Achievements Of The Great Naturalists. New York: Literary Guild, 1936.
Porter, Charlotte M. The Eagle's Nest: Natural History and American Ideas
1812-1842. Univ. of Alabama Press, 1986.
Zebulon Pike Expedition, 1806-1807
Jared Orsi. Citizen Explorer: The Life of Zebulon Pike. Oxford, 2014.
392 p.
Stephen Harding Hart and Archer Butler Hulbert, editors. The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike 1806--1807. Univ. of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2006. Annotated edition of Pike's journal, including route location details, benefiting from the papers returned by Mexico in 1910, extensive commentary, as well as significant essays on Pike's papers and the purpose of his famed expedition.
Donald Jackson, editor: The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, with Letters and Related Documents. 2 vols., Univ. Oklahoma, Norman, 1966. All the material about Pike's expeditions: every journal, document and letter that pertains, with notes. Has a good selection of illustrations and maps. Jackson was a top US historian who lived in Colorado Springs. Few of this title were printed, and it is a high-priced rarity now, but essential for Pike historians. Unless you are Pike historian or enthusiast, you don't need Jackson or Coues (next).
Elliott Coues, editor: The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1897); two-volume Dover reprint, 1987. The complete journals of both Pike's Mississippi expedition, and the expedition to Colorado, with detailed explanatory footnotes about routes and natural history. Even the Dover reprint of Coues is now out of print and expensive. Pike's maps were missing while this book was prepared, so some locations are incorrect.
William H. Goetzmann: Exploration and Empire. Knopf, New York, 1966. See pages 36-53 for a short overview of the Pike expedition to Colorado and its place in western exploration and politics.
James P. Ronda: Beyond Lewis and Clark The Army Explores the West. Tacoma, Washington State Historical Society, 2003. Ronda is a top western historian. Pike gets chapter 2, six pages.
Issac J. Cox: "Opening the Santa Fe Trail." Missouri Hist. Rev., 25 (1930). " ... his article is brilliantly illuminating, indispensable on Pike..." - DeVoto.
"Zebulon Pike: Scaling Pikes Peak," by John P. Murphy : http://zebulonpike.org/zebulon-pike-pikes-peak.htm
Investigating Pike's route when attempting to climb Pike's Peak. (2005)
Stephen H. Long Expedition of 1820
Nichols, Roger L., and Patrick L. Halley, Stephen Long and American Frontier Exploration. 1980; reprinted with a new preface by Nichols, Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Wood, Richard G. Stephen Harriman Long, 1784–1864: Army Engineer, Explorer, Inventor (Glendale, 1966)
Benson, Maxine, ed., From Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains: Major Stephen Long’s Expedition, 1819–1820 (Niwot, 1988), a one-volume abridgement of the Account, with a bibliography.
Goodman, George J., and Cheryl A. Lawson,
Retracing Major Stephen H. Long's 1820 Expedition: The Itinerary and Botany. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Evans, Howard .E. The Natural History of the Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains 1819-1820 (New York, 1997)
Beidleman, Richard G. “The 1820 Long Expedition,” American Zoologist 26 (1986): 307–13.
Carson, Phil. “Through a Glass, Sharply: Edwin James and the First
Recorded Ascent of Pikes Peak, July 13–15, 1820,” Essays in Colorado History, no. 14 (1994): 1–35.
Goodwin, Cardinal. “A Larger View of the Yellowstone Expedition, 1819–1820,” 4 (December 1917): 299–3l3
Fuller, Harlin M., and LeRoy R. Hafen, eds., The Journal of Captain John R. Bell, Official Journalist for
the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1820 (Glendale, 1957). [Vol. 6 of L. Hafen’s The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series, 1820–1875.]
James, Edwin. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, from the Notes of Major Long... Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1823; reprinted Barre, MA: Imprint Society, 1972.
(see original online at http://www.philaprintshop.com/westsurvbks.html)
Morris, Ralph C. “The Notion of a Great American Desert East of the Rockies,” 13 (September 1926): 190–200.
Nichols, Roger L. "Stephen H. Long and Army Exploration on the Plains," Nebraska History 52 (Spring 1971).
Rotella, Carlo. “Travels in a Subjective West: The Letters of Edwin James and Major Stephen Long’s Scientific Expedition of 1819–1820,” Montana 41 (autumn 1991): 20–35
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John Charles Frémont
Frémont: Pathfinder of the West .
Allan Nevins.
New York: Longmans Green, 1955.
"Dated but still standard"
Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire.
Tom Chaffin. Hill and Wang, 2004. 592 pp.
John Charles Frémont Botanical Explorer.
Stanley L. Welsh. Saint Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 1998. 450 pages.
John Charles Frémont: Character as Destiny .
Andrew Rolle.
Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
"highlighting Fremont's rich psycholoical content"
A Newer World : Kit Carson, John C. Frémont, And The Claiming Of The American West .
David Roberts.
Simon & Schuster, 2001.
A recent "popular" history.
The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont .
3 vols. Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Spense, eds.
Urbana: University of Illinois, 1970-1984.
Jackson's customary mastery of all the source documents, with explanatory material.
Exploring with Fremont: The Private Diaries of Charles Preuss .
Charles Preuss. Erwin G. and Elizabeth K. Gudde, eds. and translators.
Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1958.
Preuss was cartographer on some of Fremonts expeditions.
The Journals of Theodore Talbot ... with the Fremont Expedition of 1843 ... .
Theodore Talbot. Charles H. Carey, ed.
Portland: Metropolitan Press, 1931.
Talbot was an excursionist who accompanied Fremont on two expeditions, and led a side party on one
occasion.
Memoirs of My Life .
John C. Fremont.
Chicago & New York: Bedford Clarke & Co., 1887.
Thomas Nuttal and James Kirk Townsend
Townsend, John Kirk: Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains
to the Columbia River. 1833. (reprinted as Across the Rockies to the Columbia. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press, 1978.)
Coville, Frederick V.: American botanist.: The Botanical Explorations of Thomas Nuttall in California. ; Washington, D.C.: Biological Society of Washington, 1899. 8 vo. pp.109-121.
DeVoto, Bernard: Across the Wide Missouri. Illustrated by Alfred
Jacob Miller; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947. The best book about the mountain men and their world; Nuttall and Townsend included.
Gilbert, Bill: Our Nature. University of Nebraska Press,
1987. Bison Books. Chapter on Thomas Nuttall.
Graustein, Jeannette E.: Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist:
Explorations in America, 1808-1841. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1967. An exhaustive study of Nuttal and
his accomplishments.
Nuttall, Thomas. A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory during the Year 1819. , edited by Savoie Lottinville, 1980, University of Arkansas Press.
Reveal, James L.: Gentle Conquest, The botanical discovery of North America
with illustrations from the libary of Congress.
Washington: 1992. Many superb reproductions of early botanical
illustrations.
Copyright © Stuart Wier 2006, 2009, 2010, 2016.
revised Feb 6, 2016
Early Western Explorers - A Guide to Resources
Contents
L&C
David Douglas
Reuse, retransmission, or reproduction prohibited without prior written permission from the compiler.
