Archives West Finding Aid

An original handwritten exploration journal based on field notes created by Doane while leading the military escort of the Langford-Washburn-Doane expedition through present-day Yellowstone National Park in the late summer of 1870. Leaving Fort Ellis outside of Bozeman, Montana, on August 22 the explorers entered the park from the north, following the Yellowstone River along its course through the Grand Canyon and to the lake beyond. Doane managed, in spite of a serious infection of his thumb, to keep various notes on the elevation, waterfall heights, temperatures of hot springs, and other natural phenomena encountered. The party exited the eastern boundary of the park after visiting the geyser basins and Doane led his contingent back to Fort Ellis on September 24. The following months Doane had at least three copies of his report transcribed by a clerk, although he added the figures in his own handwriting. One copy was sent to the War Department and another to the Smithsonian Institute. The War Department copy was published in 1871 under the title "Report of Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane, upon the so-called Yellowstone expedition of 1870," as part of the United States congressional serial set 1440. The copy in this collection is the one he kept himself, and was given by his widow to Merrill G. Burlingame sometime in the early twentieth century.