1825-26
America
Paper, ink and graphite: 4 inches by 6 inches
Campbell House Museum
Descriptive Detail
Small and fragile, this little book has withstood the crumbling effects of time since it traveled with Robert Campbell in 1825, almost two centuries ago. It is a collection of papers stitched together and filled with descriptions, drawings, maps, lists of supplies, and accounts of goods bought and sold. This fragile collection of writing in pencil and ink may seem small, but it is of great importance to the history of the West. Although Lewis and Clark began the mapping of the West in 1804, much was still unknown when Campbell and other mountain men set out in 1825. The journal’s maps and drawings chart many territories never explored before by Europeans.
Robert Campbell’s description of the land, the Indians, mountain men, his notation of transactions, as well as his maps, all add significantly to our knowledge of this time and place. We begin to visualize the West in a time before photography. From his April 21, 1826, entry:
Marched 12 miles, high hills approach the character of mountains. Advance near the river...at six miles a handsome fork contributes its water on the south side, the river becomes more crooked and the bottoms well wooded. Camped in a fine hallow after crossing bluffs 1 mile.
The map accompanying the above entry includes a notation indicating that the camp site is marked with a sideways letter “V”.
Local Historical Connections
An Irish immigrant, Robert Campbell came to American in 1823. His ability to read and write assured him of a clerk’s position in one of the many new businesses of trade forming in St. Louis. However, because of his poor health, his doctor prescribed the clean, thin air of the Rocky Mountains. He soon became deeply involved in the fur trade traveling with many of the most famous mountain men—Jedediah Smith was one. In time, he formed other partnerships, working from 1832-1842 with William Sublette, who later became his partner in a dry goods business in St. Louis.
For many thousands of years humans have recalled their experiences through storytelling and sometimes by painting images on cave walls. Rudimentary forms of notating or recording were developed more than six thousand years ago—the foundation for written language. Writing is a tool that allows the individual to document thinking, to track changes and review observations, to examine assumptions, and to gain fresh perspectives of past events. Campbell’s journal entries and letters invite us to become a part of his thinking and experience.
National Historical Connections
The first popular account of the West written by an American mainstream author was The Adventures of Captain Bonneville by Washington Irving in 1837. Adventurist Benjamin L. E. Bonneville kept a journal of his travels to the West. When he returned in 1832, he sold the rights to his journal to Washington Irving. Irving rewrote the journal in the third person, and published it in 1837, giving the public a narrative through which they could begin to understand the faraway West. People became captivated by the stories of survival and discovery in the Rocky Mountains and beyond.
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Journal