Map of the Mississippi River stretching from Alton, Illinois to Saint Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois. Includes islands (Kerr's Island; Cabaret Island; Chouteau Island; Wilson's Island; Mobile Island; Ellis Island) and railroads (CH. A. & ST. L. R. R.; St. L. A. & T. H. R. R.; Edwardsville Coal R. R.; O. & M. R. R.).
This map and the atlas it which it appeared were based on the important map by John Mitchell, one of the earliest English mapmakers to give an accurate representation of the Missouri and the central river system of the mid continent. Mitchell’s maps were influential for a century and, as seen here, were appreciated by an international following of mapmakers.
With numerous botanical illustrations and splendid maps by hydrographer, Jacques-Nicholas Bellin, Charlevoix represents a culmination in the middle of the eighteenth century of what the French knew, or thought they knew, about North America and its rivers and varied lands drained by them. He was sent to North America to find a route to the Pacific and through years of travel and study recommended doing this by the ascent of the Missouri River or through the establishment of posts along traditional native trading routes in Canada, through strategic stepping stones. Charlevoix and Bellin set out to prove that the Missouri and the Mississippi had basically the same headwaters, and the maps in these volumes reflect that thinking in the supposed nearness of the sources of both rivers. The Great Lakes through a vast system not only were connected to the Atlantic but to the Pacific as well. the works of the French explorers and cartographers heavily interested Thomas Jefferson. Charlevoix considered the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers the finest in the world., Statement of Responsibility: Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France : avec le Journal historique d'un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l'Amérique Septentrionnale / par le P. de Charlevoix.
From Karl Bodmer's "Illustration to Maximilian Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America. London : Ackerman & Co. 1844. First edition was published in Germany, 1839. See David Rumsey's Map Collection entry for more information.
Map of the Northwest North American continent at the time of Lewis and Clark's Expedition. The map is from Patrick Gass's 1810 account of the expedition "Voyage des capitaines Lewis et Clarke : depuis l'embouchure du Missouri, jusqu'à l'entrée de la Colombia dans l'Océan Pacifique ; fait dans les années 1804, 1805 et 1806, par ordre du gouvernement des États-Unis."