First in a series.
Primary sources for historical research include newspapers, diaries and journals. They are much more likely to be factual than autobiographies or memoirs written long after the events they describe.
Files of early Idaho newspapers, nearly all of which are available on microfilm, are indispensable sources for finding the who, what, when, where and why of Idaho history. A story published in the Idaho Statesman on July 4, 1872, tells us that something happened “yesterday.” The information is almost certainly reliable. If a diary entry tells you what the writer did that day, it’s also probably what he did.
If, on the other hand, a person writes in his autobiography 30 years later what he did on a certain occasion he might have rationalized his own actions to place them in a more favorable light. As important as autobiographies are, they must be considered secondary sources.
A classic early example of an autobiography that glorifies the actions of the writer is that of Florentine sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571). He reveals himself in this rollicking account of his life as an arrogant and opinionated “macho man” who brags about his associations with the rich and famous of his day, including princes, kings and popes, as well as his conquests of women. It was written between 1558 and 1562.
The diary of Samuel Pepys (1632-1703) is a primary source of English history in the 1600s and delightful reading for what it reveals of politics and the author’s life and loves in an important time in his country’s history.
Students of Idaho history are blessed with the journals of the earliest explorers who traveled west to see what is now known as Idaho. Lewis and Clark and other members of their 1805-1806 expedition kept detailed notes of what they saw and did here. In addition to the daily log kept by captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sergeants Patrick Gass and John Ordway and Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse also kept journals. From these, Lewis and Clark scholars have been able to retrace virtually every mile of the epic journey from these primary sources and from the maps drawn by Clark.
Wilson Price Hunt led one of two teams that New York merchant John Jacob Astor sent west to meet at the mouth of the Columbia River to establish a fur trading post. In September 1810, the sea party sailed in a large ship called the Tonquin on a voyage that would take it around South America. Hunt’s overland expedition left St. Louis on July 18, 1811. His journal describes one of the most disastrous expeditions in American history while giving us much useful information on American Indians, wildlife and the geographical features of the Snake River Plain that never before had been seen by white men.
Hunt’s expedition was ill-fated from the beginning. First, it left St. Louis much too late in the year to have any chance of reaching the mouth of the Columbia before winter set in. The large size of the party also would prove to be a handicap.
The journal tells us: “Misters McKenzie, Crooks, Miller, McClellan, Reed and Hunt, in company with fifty-six men, a woman, and two children” traveled up the Missouri River “with eighty-two horses packing commodities, munitions, food, and animal traps. Everyone walked except the partners and the woman.”
The woman was Marie Dorion, pregnant Indian wife of one of the French trappers in the party. The two children were her boys, ages about 2 and 4. Marie would give birth to her third child near present North Powder, Ore., but it would die a few days later.
The expedition planned to reach a tributary of the Columbia River, build canoes, and float the rest of the way to the Pacific Ocean. No white man had explored the Snake River before, and the plan to abandon the horses in favor of dugout canoes was doomed to fail. Price’s journal describes one disaster after another as the expedition struggled across southern Idaho in the dead of winter.
Here is an excerpt from the journal:
“October 27, 1811. (Snake River) “it is nearly a half mile wide here, and beaver are plentiful. Our journey was less fortunate next day for after passing through several rapids, we came to the entrance of a narrow gorge. Mr. Crook’s canoe capsized, one of his companions drowned, and we lost a great deal of merchandise.”
Would things get worse? Yes, a great deal worse, as I’ll describe next week.
Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. Email histnart@mindspring.com.
