Hi, all--

I've got a research question with which I'm hoping you can help me.

In November/December 1806, Meriwether Lewis made the last leg of his return journey from St. Louis to Washington (Clark was in a different party at that stage), bringing with him among others the Mandan chief Sheheke (or Shahaka), whose name is often translated as Big White or White Coyote.  Published documentary evidence shows their return trip should have taken them through Virginia via the Cumberland Gap and up through Abingdon, Botetourt County, Staunton, and Charlottesville.

I'm trying to confirm this route and get any details of those stopovers in towns through Virginia, and after perusing quite a bit of the more widely-published literature (Donald Jackson's Letters of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, the Journals of the expedition, etc.) I've looked over a number of newspapers from the period as indexed by the Virginia Newspaper Project but haven't turned up anything more than an announcement of the expedition's successful return to St. Louis (though I admit I haven't had the chance for a truly exhaustive search).

What I'm wondering is whether anybody has any other suggestions of sources to which I might turn for information about their actual trip through Virginia--particularly, whether there are any manuscript collections or diaries for individuals who lived along that route during the fall and winter of 1806 and so might have recorded observations about the party's passage through their communities.  I have done some low-level examination of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections and of the LVA's index to manuscripts, but I thought I would post the question here in case somebody has some direct knowledge of those resources or recommendations they could share with me.

Thank you so much!

All my best,

--Eric

Eric D. M. Johnson
Proprietor
The Village Factsmith Historical Consulting & Research
The Cybernetick Inkwell Web Design & Development
http://www.factsmith.com/
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