Lewis and Clark Maps: Part VIII

Always the man of vision, ever living life as a learning experience, and in all ways attending to the details, Thomas Jefferson sought to prepare the Lewis and Clark Expedition with as complete a cartographical and geographical picture of western lands as possible. Jefferson had his own collection of maps, just as he had his own very substantial library of books, all of which he and Meriwether Lewis used to prepare Lewis for the path through poorly charted Louisiana Purchase lands. There was another student of maps among them, and that was Albert Gallatin. Gallatin had emigrated from his birth home in Switzerland to Western Pennsylvania. He was already a public voice in the Pittsburgh area by the time of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, and is credited with helping to moderate the climate…