A journal of the voyages and travels of a corps of discovery: under the command of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clarke of the Army of the United States, from the mouth of the river Missouri through the interior parts of North America to the Pacific Ocean, during the years 1804, 1805 & 1806: containing an authentic relation of the most interesting transactions during the expedition, a description of the country, and an account of its inhabitants, soil, climate, curiosities, and vegetable and animal productions / by Patrick Gass, one of the persons employed in the expedition; with geographical and explanatory notes by the publisher. Pittsburgh: Printed by Zadok Cramer for David M’Keehan, publisher and proprietor, 1807.
The title pretty much tells the story.

Sergeant Patrick Gass traveled with Lewis and Clark on their famous journey west from 1804-1806. His field notes from that journey were published in 1807 by David McKeehan and printed by Zadok Cramer in Pittsburgh, the earliest first-hand account of the journey to be published.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The journal documents the westward trip, led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to find, at President Thomas Jefferson’s instructions, a water passage to the Pacific Ocean. Patrick Gass, at 33, was one of the older members of the corps, and was specially chosen for his woodworking skills. His daily account of the expedition was rough, since Gass had not had much formal education, and after the return of the corps in 1806, with the encouragement of friends, Gass approached a schoolteacher, David McKeehan, to get the journal in a printable form. It was first printed in 1807, and was so well received that it went through several printings in the U.S. as well as in England, and was also translated into German and French.
Considered to be “one of the essential books for an Americana collection” we’re pleased to have one of these rare copies in our Rare Book Room Collection, donated by the Rev. Jerry G. Robinson, class of 1957. Our copy has early 19th inscriptions still visible, including several names of previous owners. It is bound in quarter calf with mottled calf boards and gilt spine lettering.

In the summer of 2010, a professor from the University of South Carolina, Dr. Scott Gwara, came to visit the Rare Book Room to look at some illuminated manuscript leaves which are in our collection.  Two leaves were from a liturgical book of the Western Christian church (choir leaves), written in Latin on vellum and dating to around 1500.  Three leaves were from a medieval manuscript Bible, also written in Latin on vellum, and dating to 1250 Paris.

 Dr. Gwara studies medieval manuscripts in national collections, and was interested in locating and re-uniting the discrete, and usually scattered, manuscript pages into virtual books, giving scholars the ability to “see” the complete manuscripts as they were originally created.  This fall, Dr. Gwara contacted us again to let us know that a new project called manuscriptlink is now underway at the University of South Carolina to do just that.  Their Center for Digital Humanities will re-unite manuscript pages into “virtual books” which will be readable through page-turner software.  Plans are underway to collect thousands of leaves from hundreds of collections, and support for the project, as evidenced by the list of the Board of Directors, is strong and widespread, including members from OSU, the University of Toronto, the University of Kent (UK), Yale University, and the Rare Book School at UVA.

Davidson has scanned and sent the images of our choir leaves and our medieval Bible to Dr. Gwara to be included, and we’re looking forward to being a part of this exciting project!

I’ve been telling you about many of the books in our Rare Book Room Collections, and showing you images of many of them.  But, this week, I’m going to show you some images of some of the oldest materials we have in the collection…materials dating back to about 2350 BC.  Yes, BC, not AD.  That would mean that these materials would not be printed works, so what are they?  They’re cuneiforms.

What are cuneiforms?   The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines cuneiform as:

1: having the shape of a wedge

2: composed of or written in wedge-shaped characters

 

Our cuneiforms are clay tablets from the ancient Mesopotamian area, including the ancient cities of Jokha, Warka, Drehem, Babylon, Ur, and Nippur.  Most are small, and are primarily temple records, messenger tablets, butchers’ bills, business memoranda and contracts, and prayer cones.  Some were donated to the library, and others were purchased in the 1930s, at a time when many colleges and universities, and museums were acquiring artifacts from Asia.

 

Although none of our translated cuneiforms have shed any light on ancient mysteries, or answered any long-unanswered questions, they are interesting in their own right as examples of early writing and human communication.

 

 

I thought you might be interested in some of the items I found in the Rare Book Room while working with a class on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

We have an 1861 copy of Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics

published in Richmond.  Our copy belonged to Lieut. Robert Hall Morrison, son of the first President of Davidson College, and Aide-de-Camp to General D.H. Hill.  Our 1863 copy of an illustrated Manual of Military Surgery

was prepared for the use of the Confederate States Army by order of the surgeon-general.  Used as a field manual, many of the surgical illustrations depict (not surprisingly) diagrams of amputations.

Even during wars, children continue to go to school, and we have copies of two textbooks—Our Own Second Reader,

and Our Own Spelling Book, published in Greensboro, N.C. in 1862.  The reader belonged to Sallie H. Davidson, daughter of Brevard Davidson of Rural Hill in Mecklenburg County, N.C.

 

Children went to school, and families still went to church.  One of two pamphlets in the collection is a copy of an 1862 Thanksgiving Sermon preached in the Presbyterian Church at Six-Mile Creek

in the Lancaster district of South Carolina.  The other is an original printing of the Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina, printed in Charleston in 1860.

 

And elections were held.  Running for election on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1861 were Jefferson Davis, for President; Alexander H. Stephens, for Vice-President; and for state and local seats, Allen T. Caperton of Monroe and Wood Bouldin of Charlotte.

 

One of the treasures of the Rare Book Room is our William Patterson Cumming Map Collection.

Dr. Cumming was the son of missionary parents and came to the U.S. at age 14 to study.  He graduated from Davidson in 1921, then went on to study at Princeton and Oxford Universities.  He returned to Davidson in 1927 to teach English, where he remained for the rest of his career.  Although teaching English literature was his vocation, he became fascinated with maps, beginning with the purchase of a 1676 John Speed map of Carolina, purchased on his honeymoon in England.

Initially curious about the odd misrepresentations which appreared on the map, Dr. Cumming began his research, and became increasingly interested in the subject of early maps, particularly those of the southeastern U.S.

He continued to collect maps, began writing numerous articles, and in 1958 published the first edition of The Southeast in Early Maps which has become the landmark study of the subject.  Dr. Cumming continued to teach, while also becoming acclaimed as the leading expert on early maps of the southeastern U.S.

Dr. Cumming donated his collection of maps and related materials to the Davidson College Library, and they are now housed in the Rare Book Room.  Both for their beauty and their value to scholars, we are indebted to Dr. Cumming.

Rare Books. Old Books.  Often people try to equate the terms, but “rare” is not necessarily “old,” neither is “old” necessarily “rare.”  We’re fortunate that the Rare Book Room does have some “old” books which are both, including some incunabula.

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