"The Galloping Gourmand" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> On Mar 23, 10:14?am, "Wayne Lundberg" >
> wrote:
> > "The Galloping Gourmand" > wrote in
ooglegroups.com...
>
> > > I am searching for excerpts from the diary of my GG grandfather's
> > > cousin and images of his artifacts right now.
>
> > Looking forward to more on your grandfather's diary. Interesting
>
> He was my great great grandfather's cousin of the same surname.
>
> On the English side, my family tree includes military leaders,
> colonial governors, a poet, a banker, an inventor, and an artist who
> accompanied a famous naturalist up the Missouri River as far as the
> steamboat would take the party on an expedition to record and
> popularize as many North American mammals as possible.
>
> The expedition's leader was not a landscape painter and he didn't
> "do" botany either, so that's where my GG grandfather's cousin came
> in. He painted backgrounds and foliage for his patron who would then
> brush in the central subject.
>
> In his diary, he describes the fur trading fort where they lived for
> two months, the expert horsemanship of the better riders and their
> ability to fire their guns from horseback while riding no hands, the
> firing of cannons to salute arriving boats, a visit to an Indian
> burial ground, and the general character of some of the outcasts who
> lived beyond the reach of the law.
>
> He returned from North Dakota with a bird named after him. It was the
> expedition leader's practice to name birds after his friends and
> travelling companions, so my GG grandfather's cousin appears to be
> credited with his own bird species, which annoys taxonomists.
>
> The party returned to St. Louis by open sailboat.
>
> I learned that his diary was donated to the Boston Athenaeum long
> before
> e-books were ever conceived of, so it's unlikely that I will ever get
> to actually read it. His paintings of birds are also in the Athenaeum
> and it would take a dedicated researcher to figure out whether he
> painted the whole picture, or if the central subject was actually
> painted by the famous ornithologist who is generally credited with it.
>
> The practice of multiple artists working on one painting is hardly
> new. The old masters used their students to paint large portions of
> the works they are credited with.
>
Interesting. I hope you can find some references to the eating habits or
conditions which ruled in those days. I bet jerky and pemmican was among
them. But what happens when one gets old and the teeth don't have the
strength to chew the jerky? Did they leave the old people on the trail to
die? As did the native Americans?

Hope you get a chance to find the old records some day.

Wayne