:ED QUARTERLY FOR THE CLEMENT S LIBRARY ASSOCIA TES

uarto~UMBER 124, :MARC H , 1979

ga llery gu ide in the form of a poster will beavai la ble.

Concurren tly th ere wiIl be an exhibition ofmaps and survey instruments arra nged by gra d u­at e stude n ts in th e Mu seum Practice Program.It is titled, "Decor ative Imagery in Maps, Six­tee nth-Eigh tee nt h Cen turies," and emphasizessym bolic properti es of the engraver's art , par­ticularly on Dutch a nd British maps. An exh ib i­t ion ca ta log will be issued.

Both ex hi bitions will open Apri l 20 and con­tinue throug h ~ray 26, wi th a possibl e extensionth rough the sum mer.

The

• Til M eet ing

f OC:"i DER'S DAY at the Clements Librar y, bein gcele brated th is year on April 19, is worth mark­ing on th e calendar! Starting at 8 p.m. in th elibrary, Lt. Col. John Montrcsor, descendan t andnamesake of an eminen t mapmaker of th e British.3.rmy during th e Amer ican R evolution, willpea k on hi s in teresting military ancestor to the

Clemen ts Associates a nd the Fr iends of the:\1useum of Art.

\ Ve will then adjourn to the Museum for apreview of ex hibits mentioned elsewhe re in theQua rto. Refreshments will be served.

A La Carte CLA Board

Two EXHIBITIONS at the University of Mi chi ganMu seum of Ar t th is month will feature mapsfrom the Clemen ts Library and other ma jorarch ives.

One is en tit led "J oh n Mon tresor in America:Eighteenth-Century Military Maps." T his di s­pl ay concentra tes on the work of Capt. JohnMontresor (1736- 1799), one of the most color fu lofficer s and skilled car tographe rs to serve in theBritish army. During twenty-four years of servicein Am erica he mastered th e variou s conventionsof surveying, drawing, and sha d ing required ofmili tary engineers. By using hi s maps, this ex hi bi­tio n will examine the variou s th em es of mil itarymap construc tio n a nd use in the late eighteenthcen tury.

Different maps indicate th e divergent purposesintended for military maps a nd also the varietyof techniques and styles required to obtain to­pographic information. Exhibited here win betown plans, route surveys, printed maps, recon­naissan ce maps, troop di sposition charts, and aser ies showi ng the evolution of a manuscriptma p from grou nd plan to finished fair co py. A

Two NEW 1\f EM BERS have been welcomed to theHoard of Governors of the Clements LibraryAssociates. J oh n D. Wheeler , a native and resi­den t of th e Bay C ity area , is a partner in MCIInsurance of Bay City and Saginaw. 1\Ir. \ Vhcelerhas lon g been in terested in the lib rary a nd isa n enth usias tic collec tor of maps.

Peter N . Heydon , a facul ty member of theuniversity, pursues many ph ilanthropic and cu l­ru ral interests in Ann Arbor. Prof. Heydon pub­lished several work s abou t Robert and Elizabe thBrowning, and he ha s assembled a not ablemanuscript collection .

N et» Secretary

\VE ARE PLEASED to announce that Vivian C.Main e has joined the Clements sta ff as secre ta ry,upon the retirement of Agn es Pope. Mrs . Mainebrings to the library an impressive backgroundin aca de mic and gove rn me ntal work. In add it ionto her clerical skills, she has exper ience in publicrelations, whi ch makes her a valuable asset tothe C lemen ts Library Associat es organization .

THE CLEMENTS LIBRARY ASSOCIATESof The Universit y of Michigan

BOARD O F GOVERNORS

Appoi n ted by the Regents of the lJ niversity

Mrs. No yes L. Avery, Jr.. Grand RapidsCa rl W. Bonbright, Flin tEdward W. Bowen . Ray CityRobert 1'. Briggs, Elk R ap ids, C H AIR M AN

C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr.. Bloomfield HillsBly Corn ing. Flin tT homas N. Cross, A n n A rborDu ane N . Diedrich, Mun cie, Ind." rilli am C. Fin kenstaedt. DetroitH arlan II . H a tcher, A nn ArborPeter N . Heydon, Ann A rborJames I\L Klancnik, Chi cagoJ ames S. Scho ff, N ew YorkRoy M. Tolleson. j-, Detro itMrs. David F. Upton, St. JosephLee D. van Antwerp. N orthbrook, Ill .John D. Wheeler. /lay CityJ ohn C. Dann, Director of th e

Library. SE CRETARY

Civ il War Records

THE LIBRARY lIAS received an important gi ftfrom the estate of Br uce Ca tt on. H e bequeathedto th e Cl ements hi s set of The War of th e R ebel­lion : A Compilat ion of th e Official Records ofthe Union and Confederate Armies a nd theOfficial R ecords of th e Unio n ancl ConiederateNa uies, This inv aluable referen ce work {or theCivil "VaT was begun in 1864 and com ple ted in1927. The series devoted to th e armies comprises128 volumes. This sp lendid gift complem en ts th elibrary's growing collection of primary sourcesfor th e Civil W ar.

Bru ce Calton served on th e Library's Com­mittee of Managcm eur from 1973 until h is deathlast fall.

"Census" of R evolutionary A merica

A NEW LIBRARY P ROJECT, grow ing out of th eBicen tennial program, begins in 1979. The pro­ject will crea te a "census" of the United Sta tesa t it s ori gin- in and around 1776. Although the" new" socia l hi stor y is perha ps the most act ivefield of h istori ca l stud ies today, the lack of in­di vidual-level data on a national basis hasseverely limited study of United Stat es socie tybefore the Civil \ Var.

Using military record s, wh ich are very full f OT

this earl ier period, as its core, and in corporatingdata from non-mil itary sources, th e com pletedcensus wi ll provide information on rough ly aquart er-mill ion Revolut ionary ve terans and th eirfam ilies . For a population of less than four mil­lion a t the first Federal census in 1790, th e Revo­lut ionary census will encompass a very largeproportion of the society. Not unt il 1850 does th eFederal census begin to conta in th e quantity ofdata for individ ua ls th a t the project will re ­co nsti tu te for the Revol u tionary per iod . Thecomp leted proj ect will be of major va lue todemographers, socio logists, and an tiq ua r ians aswell as to hi stori ans.

\\'ith a mod est research gran t fro m Rackh amand usin g th e ma gnificent universit y comp utercapabili ties, D r. D arin a nd Professor J ohn Shyof the H istor y Dep artmen t will undertake a pilotproject on selec ted sample grou ps of part icipantsin the American Revolu tion . The pilot proj ectwill produce a body of interest ing a nd usablepersona l infor mation. and will also perfect thetechniques of ex trac tion and computerization.W ith thi s experi en ce, a much larger gra n t fromou tside the u niversity will be soug h t to esta blishthe project on a n at ional scale .

Bequest

Tue C LEM ENTS LIBRARY r ecentl y recei ved agen erous bequest of $7,SOO from the estate ofJ ay H. Schmidt. In 1916 Mr. Sch mid t received adegree in chemist ry fro m the University ofMichi gan. la te r becoming president of SpecialToiletries Corp. of Irvington, New Jersey .

\Vhen he visi ted Ann Arbor, M r. Sch midtregularly stopped a t th e Clements. H is specialinterest in Abraham Lincoln prompted pleasantcon versations with the sta ff. Mr . Schmidt's deathoccu rr ed on Oc to ber 8, 1976. P urchases madepossible by h is bequest wiil carry a hookplatehonoring hi s memory.

Georgia

AMON G T H E FIRST immigrants to Georgia was agroup of seventy-eight Germ ans from Salzburgin Bava ria . They arrived in Murch , 1734, littlemore th an a year after J am es Oglethorpe and hi strus tees had la nd ed the first group of co lonists.The Sal zburgers were Lutherans, seeking reli­gious fr eedom, and th eir story is told in a rem ark­able collectio n of narratives en tit led A usf iihrlicheNa chricht vo n den Salzburgischen Em igranten ,edited by Samuel Urlsperger and published inGermany from 1735 to 1752.

The comp lete series, th ree vol umes con ta in ingnin eteen parts, is ex treme ly difficult to obtai nand is held by only a handful of librari es; theClem en ts had ow ned four of the parts, all im­perfect. Recently we acq ui red com plete copiesof two of th e sections previously owned , plus athird section wh ich is new to us. Best of all , ourset no w incl ud es two of the key element s of theentire collect ion: th e " Ma p of th e County ofSavannah " and th e por trait of th e colon ists'fr iend, the Yamacraw chi ef T orno-ch i-ch i.

The map is one of th e very earl iest to depictthe area wh ere the Georgia co lon ists settled, atthe mo uth of th e Savan nah River. It sho ws thelayout of the town of Savannah , the villages ofHi ghgate and Hampstead , Fort Argyle, th e up ­r iver sett lemen t of J osephs T own, and th e vill agesettl ed by th e Salzburgers a nd named Eb en ezer.The en graved portrait of T ome-chi -chi was donefrom a painting of th e ch ief made when hevisited Eng land in 1734. It sho ws h im as a di gni­tied , fine-fea tured man, posing with hi s armab out the shou lder of hi s nephew.

The new acq uisi tio ns are importan t sourcematerial s for both th e h istory of Georgia andof German immigrat ion. They were acq ui redthrough th e Shearer Memorial Fund.

Mary Park er Smith

'VE W ERE SORRY to Jearn of the death of MaryPark er Sm ith, widow of Bay City industriali stHuGert S. Smith . on December 8, 1978. Her lon gassociation with the library, her gra ciousness andgenerosity mad e her a valued fr iend .

In 1955 Mary Parker Smith gave the Clemen tson e of its most sign ifican t acq uisit ions-her hus­band's magnifi cent collection of books and ma nu ­scri pts rela ti ng to British and America n navalhi story. At that ti me Director H oward Peckhamdescr-ibed the bequest: "A man devoted to shipsand sai ling , to nava l ex ploi ts a nd voyages of

di scovery, ma y range far and wid e in hi s collect­in g. Hubert Smith did so, and the breadth ofhi s in terests, height en ed by the sureness of h istaste, is reflected in th e books and manuscriptshe acquired ."

.,"Vhen we conside r both the h istor ical impor­tance and th e aes th eti c quali ty of th e SmithNaval C oll ection- from a twelfth-century copyof Vegetius' Epitome rei m il itaris, a W ill emIlIaeu A tlas or th e elega ntly bound letters ofAdmiral Lord Nelson, we recogni ze our deepindebtedness to Mar-y Parker Smi th.

Discovery Professor

DAVI D B Et:RS Q UINN, Em eritus Professor of Hi storyfrom the U nivers ity of Liverpool , is in residencea t th e library thi s term as part of our Programin the History of Di scovery. H is appointmen there is being shared wi th the university's HistoryDep artment, wh ere he is visiting professor.

T wo courses are presen tl y meeting underProf. Quinn's in struction. He lectures in anundergradua te survey cou rse on North Americato 1660 wh ich is oriented to the first di scoveri esof the English, French, and Spanish and thegrad ua l con traction of th e na tive Ame rican 50- '

ciet ies in to the interi or. A grad ua te seminarmeets on ce a week in our map room and h asdrawn stude nt s from such d iverse fields as a nth ro­pology and the hi story of art in addi tion to th osefrom histor y and En gl ish literature-disciplinesmore traditionally associa ted with th e hi story ofd iscovery.

Prof. Quinn is a re nowned au thor ity on theear liest phases of North American discovery andsett lement. H is books include subjects familiarto a ll stude n ts of Am er ican h istory- Sebast ianCabot, T homas Cavendish, Sir Walter R alei gh,and the drawings of J ohn \Vhite-in add ition toed ited works on Sir Humphrey Gi lbert , theRoanoke vo yages of 1581-1 590, a nd R ich ardHakluyt's Prin cipall N avigations. Prof. Quinnfollows Charles Boxer as the second par t icipantfrom outsid e the universi ty's fac ulty to teach inthe discovery program.

Alison 1\1. Qui nn is with her husband in AnnArbor. Mrs. Quinn was awarded the W heatleyMedal of the British Society of Indexers and hasset to work on th e eno rmous task of indexing thethirty-volum e ser ies of Imago M undi: A R eviewof Early Cartograph y. She has organized a teamof assista nts drawn from Cl ements Associatesand the Mich igan Map Societ y.

Russian Discovery of America

Tux CLEM ENTS is participating in th e RussianArts Festi val sponsored b y th e Center for Russianand East European Studies at th e University ofMichigan. Our contribution is an exhibit entitled"T he Russian Discovery of Am erica : Bering'sVoya ges, 1728 a nd 1741," designed by Arlene Sh y,Manuscript Curator. The Cl em ents has a finecollection of maps and books rel at ing to th e hi s­tory of Alaska before 1868. This ex h ibit focuseson the earliest Russian voyages.

As the sixteenth cen tu ry ended and the seven­teenth began, while Englishmen made tentativefootholds in Virgini a, Russian s moved eastwardfrom M lIscovy into Asia . They reached the Pacifi ca t th e mouth of th e river U !'Ia. on th e sea ofOkhotsk in 1639. Bands of Cossacks, tribute col ­lectors, political exiles, and promyshlenniki (furtrappers ) con tin ued to fight th eir way acrossSiberia, dOlling th e riverwa ys with sett leme nts,threatened by fierce Mongolian natives and th ecr uel cIirna te.

By the beginning of the eigh teen th centuryRussia 's Asian empire extended southward toKamchatka and th e Kurile Islands. Yet little wasknown about its eas ter n boundaries. The primaryquestion concerning exploration in thi s area waswhether Siheria and America were joined b yland.

Peter th e Great, in hi s drive to modernize andwesternize Russia, visited England and Europe,consulting expe r ts in a variety of technical andschola rly fields. Among th e learned men he metwere cartographers and scien t ists involved in th enumerous maritime explorations being under­taken in the late seventeen th and early eigh tee n thcentury by England, Spain, Portugal, and th eNetherlands.

Only weeks before his death he drew hi sinstructions for the first Kamchatka exped it ionand chose the Danish naval officer Vitus Beringto lead it. In January, 1725, Empress Catherine Icarried out her husband's wishes, directingBering to "Sail along the shore whi ch hearsnortherly and which, since the limits are u n­known, seems to be part of America . Determinewhere it joins America."

The first expedition left the southern end ofth e Kamchatkan peninsul a in July, 1728. Sailingnorth along th e eas ter n shore of th e peninsul a,th ey reached latitude 64° 30' at the Anadir River.Here native Chukchi told th em th e coa st turnedwestward after rounding East Ca pe . Bering con­tinued until he reached St. Lawrence Island, th e

first part of modern Alaska to be seen. When here ached latitude 67 ° 18', having passed th e eas t­ernmost point of Asia th rough th e strait nowcarrying hi s name, Bering concluded th at Asiaand America were not united and conside red hismi ssion com pleted.

R eport s of this voyage were met with cr iticis m.It was not certain, from Bering's limited dis­coveries, th at America and Asia mi gh t not bejo in ed a t some poin t higher th an he had re ached .There was no positive evid en ce th at th e land hedi scovered opposite Asia was Am erica at all. Sinceth e distance across the strai t was narrow , th e landto the eas t could very well be a n island far fromAmerica.

To an swer th ese cr it ics, a seco nd Kamchatkanex ped it ion was launched in 1733. Far more am­bi tious than the first , Bering was accompa niedby a di stinguished group of scho la rs and sup­ported by a party of nearly 600 people.

From th e beginning th e expedition suffereddelays and incredible hardships. Bering's ineffec­tu al lead ershi p exacerbated th e difficulties im ­posed by great di stances, difficult terrain a ndArctic cold. Finally, onJuly 15, 1741, th e expedi­tion left Avatch a Bay in two ships. with Beringcomma nding th e St. Paul a nd Ale xi Chi rikov inth e St. Peter. Shortly after, th e two vessels weresepa ra ted and would not meet aga in . Chirikov,after sea rchi ng fo r Bering, tu rn ed eastward andon July 15, di scovered th e American coas t about100 mil es south of the present site of Sitka,Alaska . Hering, sailing eastward on a more north­er ly course, di scove red S1. Elias Island ( 1I0 W

Kyak ) on Jul y 17. As his officers gathered to con­gratulate him, Bering responded, "A grea t dis­covery no doubt, and the accom plishme n t of allour de sires; hut who knows wh ere we are, whenwe sha ll see Russia , and wh at we shall have to

eat in th e meantime."His lacon ic react ion proved prophetic. Al ­

though Chirikov returned, Bcring did not. TheSt . Paul was wrecked in November on Hering'sIsland, almos t within sigh t of Avat ch a Hay.Hering and mo st of his crew died from scurvyand exposure during th e winter months. Byspri ng a re m na n t of th e party, includin g th e greatGerman naturali st Georg Steller, constr ucted abo at from th e wreckage and reached th eir homebase in late Augu st.

Peter the Grea t' s d ream was fulfill ed. Russian shad proved tha t Asia and America were notunited; a n American province was adde d to th eRussian Empire a nd a new source of grea t wealthhad been found in th e fur-rich Am erican coast ,