November 25, 1806

Frazer’s Prospectus

PROPOSALS

For publishing by Subscription,

Robert Frazer’s Journal,

From St. Louis, in Louisiana, to the Pacific Ocean.

CONTAINING

An accurate description of the Missouri and its several branches—of the mountains separating the eastern from the western waters—of the Columbia river and the bay it forms on the Pacific Ocean—of the face of the country in general—of the several tribes of Indians on the Missouri and Columbia rivers—of the vegetable and animal productions discovered in those extreme regions—the latitude and longitude of some of the most remarkable places.

Together with a variety of curious and interesting occurrences, during a voyage or two years four months and nine days; conducted by Captains Lewis and Clark, and published by their permission.

This work will be contained in a volume of 400 pages octavo, and will be put to press so soon as there shall be a sufficient subscription to defray expences; the price to subscribers three dollars; any person becoming responsible for ten will be allowed the eleventh gratis.—The books will be sent to such public places as best suit subscribers.

Subscriptions will be received by William Christy, in the town of St. Louis, Upper Louisiana.^[1]Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, 25 November 1806, page 3.

Lewis’s Warning

Lewis had asked Frazer to avoid discussing natural history and geography, yet his prospectus focuses primarily on those topics. Knowing that he would not be able to publish his own journals for two years, he sent a letter to newspapers warning the public “to be on guard” regarding the various journals about to be published such as those by Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and Robert Frazer.

City of Washington
March 14th 1807.

I think it is my duty to declare that Robert Frazier, who was only a private on this expedition, is entirely unacquainted with celestial observations, minerology, botany or zoology, and therefore cannot possibly give any accurate information on those subjects, nor on the geography, and that the whole which can be expected from his Journal is merely a limited detail of daily transactions.

Meriwether Lewis^[2]Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783–1854, ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 2:385–86.

After Lewis’s rebuke, perhaps Frazer and William Christy pulled back from the endeavor. Regrettably, Frazer’s journal was never published and is lost to history.