EARLY CARTOGRAPHIC MENTION OF PIKE’S PEAK
94. [DODGE EXPEDITION (1835)]. [KINGSBURY, GAINES
P.]. [Caption title]: Colonel Dodge’s Journal...A
Report of the Expedition of the Dragoons, Under the Command
of Colonel Henry Dodge, to the Rocky Mountains,
During the Summer of 1835. Washington: HRD181, 1835. 37
pp., 2 engraved folding maps with original outline
coloring: (1) [STEEN, Enoch]. Map Showing the Land
Assigned to Emigrant Indians West of Arkansas &
Missouri (47.2 x 45.1 cm; 18-1/2 x 17-3/4 inches); (2)
[Untitled map showing location of Native American tribes
and "Route of the Dragoons under the command of Col. Dodge
in 1835"] Estimated Distance 1645 Miles by Lieut. Steen
United States Dragoons (49.4 x 86.6 cm; 19-1/2 x 34
inches). 8vo, modern half brown levant morocco over marbled
boards. Very fine, maps superb.
First
edition, House issue. Claussen & Friis 127
& 128. Graff 2335. Howes K161. Jones 985. Matthews, p.
274. Plains & Rockies III:63: "The maps are of
great rarity"; IV:63: "The expedition left Fort
Leavenworth on May 29, 1835, proceeding up the South Platte
River to the Rocky Mountains, thence to Fountain Creek and
Bent’s Fort; they returned down the Arkansas River to
the Santa Fe Trail and back to Fort Leavenworth, arriving
there September 16. The detachment visited the Omaha,
Pawnee, Arikara, and other tribes along the upper Platte
and Arkansas rivers during a march of sixteen hundred
miles." Rittenhouse 348. Wheat, Mapping the
Transmississippi West 418 & 421, & pp. 149-51:
"Early cartographic mention [of Pike’s
Peak]....[Steen’s map 2] is well executed...Steen had
a long and interesting career in the army. He was post
commandant at Fort Belknap, Texas, in 1854 when R. B. Marcy
was there on the survey of lands for Texas Indian
Reservations [see The Handbook of Texas Online: Fort
Belknap]." John L. Allen ("Patterns of Promise: Mapping the
Plains and Prairies, 1800-1860" in Mapping the North
American Plains [Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1983],
p. 49) designates Steen’s map (map 1 above) as "one of
the three most important maps of the decade" and comments:
"In the summer of 1835, a detachment of dragoons under the
command of Col. Henry Dodge was sent westward across the
plains to the Rockies with a mission of locating tribal
patterns. Accompanying this expedition was Lt. Enoch Steen.
His manuscript map [source of the first printed map, listed
above] of the dragoons’ route shows both the state of
geographical knowledge on the plains and tribal patterns on
the frontier in the mid-thirties" & (p. 118 & Fig.
7.4): "Steen’s map [second map above] was perhaps the
first published map to label major tributaries of the
Arkansas River which the Santa Fe Road crossed and to
identify the general locations of the Pawnee and Otoe
villages on the Platte River, Bent’s newly established
trading house on the upper Arkansas, and Council Grove and
Pawnee Rock along the Santa Fe route. The map showed
general locations of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne
Plains Indians tribes....While Steen erred in several
instances, he did portray a number of cultural features on
the landscape as well as identify important physical
features....Secretary of War Lewis Cass wrote in his 1835
report that ‘The regiment of dragoons has been
usefully employed in penetrating into the Indian
country...and in adding to our geographical knowledge of
those remote regions."
($600-1,000)