A Naturalist in Indian Territory: The Journals of S.W. Woodhouse, 1849-50 (American Exploration & Travel Series)

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Description

As the USA began to look westward after the Louisiana Purchase, its official government exploring parties an increasing number of included scientists who were sent to study the natural history of the new lands. In the spring of 1849, young Philadelphia physician S. W. Woodhouse, an avid ornithologist, became this kind of fortunate pioneering scientists when he was once appointed surgeon-naturalist of two expeditions to survey the Creek-Cherokee boundary in Indian Territory. Woodhouse served on both expeditions of the survey, the first in 1849 under Capt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves and the second one under Lt. Israel Carle Woodruff in 1850.
Throughout the expeditions, Woodhouse, a keen observer of frontier life and society, wrote down his impressions of the places he passed, in addition to offering his physician’s-eye view of the lives of odd people. His three diaries are also a valuable record of early Indian Territory personalities such as the McIntoshes and the Perrymans of the Creek Indians; Elijah Hicks of the Cherokees; Tallee and Clermont III of the Osages; and Oh-ha-wah-kee of the Comanches.
The journals also contain a rare early view of Oklahoma natural world: the swallow-tailed kite and the ivory-billed woodpecker in the dense forests along the Grand, Verdigris, and Arkansas rivers, and elk, bison, and the common raven on the wide western plains. Woodhouse’s journals and the detailed reports of his work in Indian Territory resulted in the discovery of fifteen new forms of animals, including one freshwater mussel, seven beetles, five snakes, one bird, and one mammal.
This presentation of the long-over-looked Indian Territory journals, in conjunction with a detailed introduction and clarifying notes, reveals Woodhouse as a more important early government naturalist than has up to now been recognized. A Naturalist in Indian Territory will be particularly valuable to historians of Indian Territory and to biologists of this region.

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