Generations of nature and history lovers in
the Southeast have read and re-read a book published in 1791 by
naturalist William Bartram and usually called by the truncated name
of Travels. This
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| The illustration is from the Squier copy. |
seminal work describes in depth the flora and fauna of North and
South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Bartram’s descriptions of Indian culture also remain important.
Recently, a UGA anthropology professor discovered what is probably
a rare copy—one of three known—of the now-lost original
manuscript for Bartram’s book called Observations on the
Creek and Cherokee Indians. The copy adds an important chapter
to Bartram’s legacy, still expanding after more than two centuries.
“I continue to hope that the original Bartram manuscript will
be discovered,” says Mark Williams. “But in the absence
of that document, this newly discovered copy is a welcome addition
to a growing collection of documents about Bartram, who seems, to
many of us, like an old friend.”
The manuscript, which Williams found in the Charles C. Jones Jr.
Collection in UGA’s Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
is already drawing interest from scholars. The copy, almost certainly
made by Ephraim G. Squier (1821-1888), an important scholar of Native
American history, is significant for a number of reasons.
“As one of only three extant copies of William Bartram’s
‘Observations’ manuscript, Squier’s tracings of
Bartram’s drawings of prehistoric mounds, Creek towns and
Cherokee and Creek structures contain some new details, previously
not shown on our other copies of these ethnographically important
but long-lost originals,” says Gregory Waselkov of the University
of South Alabama.
Charles C. Jones Jr., in whose collection the manuscript resides,
was a Princeton- and Harvard-trained lawyer. He was originally from
Savannah and was a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil
War. After the war, he conducted business in New York City for a
decade before moving back to Georgia and locating in Augusta.
He developed an interest in Indian archaeological sites in Georgia
and published several books and papers on the topic.
In the early 1980s, Williams, whose archaeological work has focused
on Georgia’s Oconee River Valley, was searching the Jones
collection for notes and data about several sites that Jones had
examined in the 19th century.
“In one folder, I noticed a hardback book with black leather
and colored paper covers,” says Williams. “The book’s
spine is labeled with both the title MSS American Antiquities
and the name Squier in gold lettering.”
Inside the book, Jones’s personal crest and family motto in
Latin were on the left inside cover, but on the first page of the
book was the signature “E. Geo. Squier” in pen, along
with a New York address. Lower on the page someone has written,
“Presented to Coln [Colonel] C.C. Jones, Jr.”
One section of the book mentioned the name Bartram, but Williams
assumed Squier had copied that segment from well-known publications
such as Travels.
Williams forgot about the book until 1998, when a noted 1848 book
by Squier and Edwin H. Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi
Valley, was reprinted. Williams considered re-examining the
manuscript at UGA, but didn’t get to it until 2002. He realized
that the manuscript he had seen could be a copy of the long-lost
Bartram document called Observations on the Creek and Cherokee
Indians.
Williams has by now determined how Squier obtained the Bartram manuscript
and copied it into his notes. He gave a paper presenting the details
at the Bartram Trail Conference in Montgomery, Ala., and at the
Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Charlotte, both in last
November.
A remaining scholarly question, for which Williams has theories
but as yet no answers, is how the Squier copy of the Bartram manuscript
wound up in the possession of Charles C. Jones Jr. The Jones collection
was sold to the UGA Libraries in the 1960s.
In addition to being a research scientist and teacher in the department
of anthropology, Williams is director of the Georgia Archaeological
Site File, the official repository for information about known archaeological
sites of all periods in the state of Georgia, founded in 1976, and
the primary source for documentation about Georgia archaeology.
He has found his foray into historical research exciting.
“The job of comparing this newly discovered copy to the Payne
and Davis copies is now under way,” says Williams. “This,
of course, is not what I usually do. I’m an archaeologist,
and this is the work of a historian. But it has been incredibly
rewarding, and we continue to hope that the original Bartram manuscript
will turn up.” |
