In 1836, the United States Congress finally authorized a Survey and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. The previous American President, John Quincy Adams, had put the matter before Congress almost ten years earlier. Once authorization was received, the final preparations proceeded quickly. A group of scientists were recruited including a young nurseryman from Scotland. William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810-1893) had been in the United States only two years before the expedition set sail for the Pacific Ocean in 1838. These are his first four "original notebooks" as he called them. Join other volunteers to transcribe them and so make this handwritten record more accessible for today's researchers.
In 1836, the United States Congress finally authorized a Survey and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. The previous American President, John Quincy Adams, had put the matter before Congress almost ten years earlier. Once authorization was received, the final preparations proceeded quickly. A group of scientists were recruited including a young nurseryman from Scotland. William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810-1893) had been in the United States only two years before the expedition set sail for the Pacific Ocean in 1838. These are his first four "original notebooks" as he called them. Join other volunteers to transcribe them and so make this handwritten record more accessible for today's researchers.
The United States Exploring Expedition was also known as the Wilkes Expedition, after its commander was Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy. It was prompted by a desire to obtain information concerning an area which was rapidly becoming of interest to American traders and whalers. When the expedition returned in 1842, Brackenridge was entrusted with the care of the living plants and also with the report on ferns collected by the expedition. In 1855 he moved to the Baltimore area and spent the rest of his life there as a nurseryman and landscape architect.
Other individuals in the contingent of scientists who accompanied the expedition included Charles Pickering, Titian Ramsay Peale, Joseph P. Couthouy, James Dwight Dana, William Rich, and Horatio Hale. In addition to the scientists, two illustrators, Joseph Drayton and Alfred T. Agate, also accompanied the expedition.