An interesting query
Neglected manuscripts
Why did not General Clark surrender this wealth of manuscripts
either to the American Philosophical Society or to
Jefferson, when the latter was
searching for all the
documents of the expedition, stoutly claiming them
as the undoubted property of the government? The
probable answer is,
that Biddle found the four Clark-Voorhis
morocco note-books of no service
to him; for practically all
the facts contained in them are either in
Lewis's journals of
similar dates or in other drafts by Clark. He
doubtless returned
the books to Clark, in the
early stages of the work,
keeping only those which later were placed in
the Society's
archives. It is probable, also, that the engraver having
completed
such maps as he deemed necessary
for the publication,
all the charts made upon the expedition were returned
to
Clark. As for the skin-bound field-book, this having already
been
transcribed into a red morocco note-book, very likely
the original did not
go to Biddle at all; the orderly book, the
various fragments, the
Lewis-Clark correspondence, and the
letter of credit, were doubtless also
retained at St. Louis as being
deemed, for Biddle's purpose of a popular
narrative, unusable
material. On his
part, it is probable that Clark had either
forgotten the existence of
these documents, or, like Biddle,
considered them as of relatively slight
historical value.
His seemingly careless treatment of them would
appear to bear out the last conclusion. In all events,
they remained
among his papers untouched, until tied into
packets and labelled by his
son and executor, George Rogers
Hancock Clark.
[51]
The manuscripts
again suffered a long
period of neglect, and eventually were sent to New
York,
where they became the property of Mrs. Voorhis, the story
of
whose connection with them has already been told.
