Anderson, Mary, 1921-

This manuscript is a close hand-written transcript of the Lewis and Clark journals. The transcript (“an exact copy, word for word, letter for letter, and point for point”) was begun around December 1892 by “expert copyist” Mary Anderson at the request of Elliott Coues (Cutright, History 89), and was completed in 1893. Elliott Coues had been hired by Francis Harper to annotate the 1814 Biddle/Allen narrative of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. During his research, Coues became aware of the publication potential of Lewis and Clark's original journals, and as a result decided to have this copy made.

Although Coues never succeeded in bringing the complete journals to publication, he did begin work on the project by writing footnotes on the backs of some of the pages. Additionally, Coues made marks on the original journals, and in some cases this copy provides a check against these blemishes in the originals.

The transcript was acquired by George Tweney in the spring of 1970 from Douglas Parsonage, a New York book dealer, who had recently taken over from Lathrop Harper, the brother of the late Francis Harper (Tweney, Elliott Coues). In 2000, Tweney sold the manuscript to Lewis & Clark College.

From the guide to the Coues-Anderson Manuscript Transcript of the Lewis and Clark Journals, 1892-1893, (Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives)