New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest 2 Volume Set: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson, 1799-1814

During the 1890s Elliott Coues (1842-99), one of America’s greatest ornithologists, edited several exploration narratives about the American Northwest, including Lewis and Clark’s Travels. Coues became aware of two of Lewis and Clark’s contemporaries, fur trader Alexander Henry (1765-1814) and geographer David Thompson (1770-1857), employees of the Northwest Company. In 1894 Coues tracked down manuscripts of their unpublished journals, and his abridged and edited version of Henry’s text, accompanied by notes that draw heavily on Thompson’s scientific records, appeared in 1897. Coues explains that although Henry’s account reveals deep prejudice, its graphic but unimaginative descriptions of his unscrupulous business dealings, and of the harsh realities he observed among many different First Nations peoples, are corroborated by other accounts. Coues produced a comprehensive index of the people and places mentioned by Henry; originally published as ‘Volume 3’, it is here placed at the end of the second volume.