Annotated 1846 S. Augustus Mitchell Map

I want you to bring me one half dozen of Mitchell's new map of Texas, Oregon & California and the regions adjoining, or his accompaniment for the same for 1846, or rather the latest edition and best map of all the Indian countries in North America; the pocket maps are the best for our use. If there is anything later or better than Mitchell's, I want the best."

-- Brigham Young, 18 February 1847 letter from Winter Quarters, Indian Territory to Joseph A. Stratton, Church member in St. Louis, Missouri.

A original Mitchell's 1846 map folded inward twice each from the top and bottom, and then accordion folded eight times to fit into a small handy pocket-sized green leather booklet labeled Texas, Oregon and California was found in BYU Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Of the 166 handwritten annotations added to this particular copy of the map after publication (circa 1846-48), one annotation is likely the earliest known map entry still extant placing Mormons in Utah . Another annotation is likely the earliest known map entry showing gold in California. The extremely well informed author of the annotations is presently unknown, but may have been a U.S. Government official, Lt. William H. Emory, a member of the Mormon Battalion, John C. Frémont, Charles Preuss, Josiah Gregg, or S. Augustus Mitchell himself.

BYU Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah has granted special permission to the non-profit Douglas-Sarpy Counties Mormon Trails Association to reproduce and sell full color frameable lithographic copies of this map for the sole purpose of funding the erection and beautification of historical Mormon Trails markers in the metropolitan Omaha, Nebraska area. No other photographic copies or facsimiles may be reproduced without express written consent from Photographic Archives, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Additional parchment or acid-free copies of this map may be purchased by contacting Douglas-Sarpy Counties Mormon Trails Association, 8742 Fredrick, Omaha, NE 68124; phone 393-5600; e-mail: Youngwhite@aol.com. The cost is $15 for the parchment maps or $20 for the acid- free map. There is an additional charge of $5 for postage and handling.

Additional information about the 166 annotations on the map may be obtained from Max W. Jamison.

Click on image for larger view (63K).

Enlargement of the section of the map showing the annotation "Mormons" just south of the Great Salt Lake.

Click on image for larger view (117K).

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Mitchell's 1846 Map was highly inflammatory in its day -- illustrating the three western regions most coveted by the United States for colonization and settlement. Most Americans still believed the myth that the only remaining arable land available in the west was in Texas, Oregon, and Upper California. Presuming the rolling grass prairies of the great plains to be an untillable and worthless "Great American Desert," the federal government had even signed treaties preserving the central plains Indian Territory, the northern plains Missouri Territory, and most of the eastern plains Iowa Territory as perpetual homelands for native Americans.

Coming to commercial mapmakers..., the outstanding man of 1846, insofar as the West was concerned, was clearly the prolific Philadelphian, S. Augustus Mitchell, who during the year issued no less than three maps. The esteem in which his maps were held is shown by Brigham Young's letter .... The third map, 'A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the regions adjoining...,' was a work of real importance, highly popular, and doubtless published in a large edition; on it the influence of the [impending] War with Mexico is strikingly revealed.... Because of its popularity, this map of the West exerted great influence, not only on the public but on other commercial cartographers. The "Mormon" annotation. This enigmatic ink annotation north of the Timpan- ogo (Rock River, currently known as Provo River) between the Great Salt Lake and Utah L. is of particular interest to Mormons, even though it imprecisely places the Mormons on the northeast bench of Utah Valley vice Salt Lake Valley. If the annotations on this 1846 Mitchell map predate Charles FrＮont's 1848 map (which makes a nearly identical mistake), then they are the oldest known map entries still extant placing Mormons in the Great Basin!

The Mystery of the Annotated 1846 Mitchell Map:

The Mormon Exodus, the Mexican War, and the Gold Rush

Preface

It was Memorial Day 1996. There were only one and a half months left until the re-enactment of the Grand Encampment at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and we were getting desperate. Gail Holmes and I sat in his Omaha, Nebraska living room discussing preparations for the sesquicentennial of the 1846-47 Mormon exodus from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake Valley. We had been tasked by our local Douglas-Sarpy Counties Mormon Trails Association with finding a suitable commemorative wall map to sell as a fund raiser for placing and beautifying Mormon Trail markers in our area. We were having little success. Gail had spent over 40 years rediscovering and publicizing local Kanesville and Winter Quarters Mormon history. I was a novice, but had quickly been swept up by Gail's enthusiasm. I hoped that my twenty years experience in remote sensing, my love of historical geography, and my teaching LDS Institute Church History classes would somehow assist him. As we talked, I picked up a book from the coffee table and began to idly thumb through its pages.

It was Stanley Kimball's 1983 reprint of William Clayton s classic 1848 book, The Latter-day Saints Emigrants Guide. I became mildly interested when I noticed some black and white reprints of maps at the back of the book. I wasn't particularly interested in the contemporary maps, but then I found a section entitled "Historical Maps." Perhaps there was something here we could use.... Stephen H. Long's black and white 1823 Map of the Country Drained by the Mississippi was too old and stopped at the Rocky Mountains. The black and white 1843 Fremont-Preuss Map to Illustrate an Exploration of the Country lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, on the line of the Nebraska or Platte River was just a strip map of the Platte River it certainly didn't provide the continental overview we needed. But what was this? Mitchell's 1846 New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining covered most of the west, but I didn t recognize many of the western political boundaries on it. Hmmm.... "Heh, Gail! Look at this! Have you ever seen this map before?" "No, can't say as I have." I read him Stanley Kimball's caption: "In 1846 Brigham Young specifically ordered from St. Louis a copy of this map, which the Pioneers took west. This map was hand tinted in four colors." The time period was perfect, and a four-color map would probably sell better than those two black and white ones! I looked in the index for anything about the map, and found several references to S. Augustus Mitchell in the Editor's Preface. On pages 19-20, Stanley Kimball recounted the December 1845 map and journal research in the Nauvoo Temple by Apostles Franklin D. Richards, Parley P. Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, and Brigham Young. Then I was spellbound when I read aloud Brigham Young s January 6, 1847 letter to a member in St. Louis: "I want you to bring me one half dozen of Mitchell's new map of Texas, Oregon & California and the regions adjoining, or his accompaniment for the same for 1846, or rather the latest edition and best map of all the Indian countries in North America; the pocket maps are the best for our use. If there is anything later or better than Mitchell's, I want the best." That clinched it! "Gail, I'm going to try to find a copy of this map. It may be just what we ve been looking for. An authentic period map used by Brigham Young. And hardly anybody has seen this one in recent years!" "Well, you could call Salt Lake, and see if they still have any of Brigham Young's six maps."

The next day, I spoke to Marjorie Conder, a researcher at the LDS Museum of Church History in Salt Lake City. She said that she didn't have a copy, and referred me to Michael Landon, an archivist in the LDS Church Historical Department at Salt Lake City. He reported that they didn t list Mitchell's 1846 Map in their holdings either. My heart sank, but I wasn t about to give up yet. "But Stanley Kimball says that Brigham Young ordered six copies in January 1847! You've GOT to have at least one left!" "Well, we'll do some searching around the state, and get back with you. Perhaps we'll find something in one of the universities or historical libraries."

Days passed with no reply. It was mid-June, and time was running out if we were going to sell copies of this map at the Grand Encampment on July 11th through the 13th. I had just about given up, when I got a message on my answering machine from Chad Foulger at the LDS Church Historical Department: "We found your map. The reason we didn't find it before was because we were looking for it under the wrong name, Mitchell's 1846 Map. We have a black and white copy of Mitchell's 1846 New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining here in the Church archives, but not an original color edition. There s only one of those in the state, and it s down at BYU Library." Soon I was talking to (the late) Dennis Rowley, special collections librarian in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. I was coming out to Utah to spend the fourth of July weekend at a family reunion on Antelope Island. Could I possibly stop by to look at the map on my way out of town early the next week? "Sure...." That s all the invitation I needed!

It was Monday, July the eighth when I walked into the library. The Grand Encampment was only four days away! I waited at the counter while Dennis went back into the vault. He came back with a small green booklet about the same size as a pocket calculator in his hand. "No, no. You must be mistaken! I m looking for a map that's 21 inches wide and 22 inches tall." Dennis said, "Just wait a minute, and you'll see." He then began showing me several pages of printed material, including someone's hand drawings of Sam Houston, the Alamo, and a newspaper clipping of advertisements from an 1846 Texas newspaper. "No, no. This can't be it! I'm looking for a map, not a book." Dennis patiently replied, "But look what is bound in the back of the book!" He unfolded an accordion of thin velum, and then opened it two folds up and two folds down. There was my map! So that was what a Mr. Mitchell called a "pocket map!" It was everything I had hoped it would be: Breathtakingly beautiful pastel pink, brown, yellow and blue hand tinting on black ink! Then my heart sank again. "Dennis. What's this? Someone has scribbled all over this beautiful map!" There were tiny pencil and ink annotations added all over the map. So much for finding a pristine reproducible map.... Well, maybe it would lend a touch of "frontier authenticity." My next question would launch me on a year's research.... "Any idea what they say, or who wrote them?" "No, but it's kind of interesting. Here's one in Utah that says Mormons X. And here are some notes about Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake." "Is there any chance we can get permission to reprint this map to finance placing Mormon Trail markers in the Winter Quarters area?" Dennis patiently walked me through filling out the proper paperwork. Then I really stuck my neck out: "Is there any chance we could get a copy in time for the dedication of the Kanesville Tabernacle this Saturday?" "Well, let me see what we can do. You'd have to frame it yourselves." Thanks to the concerted efforts of Dennis and Thomas Wells, the photo archivist at the Library, I picked up a photocopy and a lithographic master of the map the next afternoon as I left Provo to drive back to Omaha. We made it. The rest of the story is history.... There are now photocopies of the map hanging in both the Kanesville Tabernacle Visitor's Center, and in the new Mormon Trails Visitor Center at Winter Quarters. And the Douglas-Sarpy Counties Mormon Trails Association has sold over 400 copies of the map to history buffs and western trails afficionados all over the United States to finance its efforts.

A year's painstaking research and Gail Holmes patient prodding resulted in my deciphering and authenticating of most of the 166 handwritten pencil and ink post- publication annotations found on the map. In the process, I read and re-read the memoirs and histories of explorers John C. Fremont and Josiah Gregg, and of cartographic historian Carl I. Wheat. I have validated numerous Santa Fe Trail annotations, researched the events of the Mexican War, retraced the path of the Mormon Battalion, and consulted numerous experts. On 24 May 1997, I presented a synopsis of the attached paper to the Mormon History Association s annual convention in Omaha, Nebraska. I had the honor of sharing a session with Stanley Kimball, whose book got me started on all this. While there, I gave him a draft of the paper with a request to review it. Four days later, he sent me his analysis, including the following very generous words: First let me assure you that your study of this Mitchell map is a splendid example of scholarship, annotation, analysis, synthesis, and inspired conjecture. You appear to have really "done your homework" and read everything appropriate. Your work is so thorough that it leaves me little to comment on....

Despite our best efforts to date, we are only slightly closer to identifying the author and purpose of the annotations than when we discovered them on this map in July 1996. The map has grown into a consuming mystery, generating far more questions than ever expected. If anything, the attached paper is a call for further research by the academic community.

--Max W. Jamison, 12 August 1998.

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