Oregon-California Trails Association | Bell, Captain John R.

Bell, Captain John R. – Journal, 1820

Merrill J. Mattes Collection·

40 printed pages from a book

The Journal of Captain John R. Bell, Official Journalist for the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1820. Edited by Harlin M. Full and LeRoy R. Hafen. Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1957

and

six typed pages of diary entries [author and date unknown]

The collection was begun in 1991 by the late Merrill J. Mattes, a co-founder of the Oregon-California Trails Association. That original nucleus was a result of a generous donation from Merrill and reflected his many years as an award-winning National Park Service historian and also included works of his own authorship. The collection is housed at the national Frontier Trails Museum in Independence, Missouri. Here, you have access to many of the original trail diaries he collected in digital form.