The Draper Manuscripts

Earlier this month I attended the 35th Fair at New Boston, a huge reenactment held at George Rogers State Park in Springfield, Ohio. A couple of my friends invited me to come, and boy, was I impressed! It looked and felt just like being in a real colonial camp, and in spite of the drizzly day, we had a wonderful time!

One of the suttlers’ tents I stopped by to check out period-correct wares was “Squire Boone’s” establishment, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a display of volume 3 of the Draper Manuscripts. Squire Boone had just acquired the last few copies still available, the only one issued in a new printing in recent years and was selling them for a price I couldn’t resist. This volume covers the Revolution and early Federal periods, just what I need for my American Patriot Series.

In case you didn’t know, the Draper Manuscripts are the holy grail of 18th and early 19th century frontier research, and full volumes can be expensive and hard to find. The alternative is to go to the Wisconsin Historical Society, where they’re held, or to a library that has them in microfilm form. Here’s a basic rundown on this amazing research goldmine.

Lyman Copeland Draper

Lyman Copeland Draper was born September 4, 1815 in Lockport, New York, and died August 26, 1891. He lived much of his life in Madison, Wisconsin, where he became a librarian and historian, serving as the first corresponding secretary for the state’s Historical Society from 1854 to 1886 and as superintendent of public instruction from 1858 to 1860.

When Draper was a boy, the tales his grandfathers told of their exploits during the Revolution and his father’s experiences in the War of 1812 naturally aroused his interest in the history of those times. By the 1830s he was corresponding with settlers who had moved into what his contemporaries called the Trans-Allegheny West—the area west of the Allegheny Mountains—during the second half of the 18th century. This region includes the Ohio River Valley and parts of the Mississippi River Valley as well as the western Carolinas and Virginia and portions of Georgia and Alabama.

Intending to document the Indian Wars in Ohio territory and write a series of biographies of the settlers, Draper traveled extensively throughout the region to develop a better sense of it. In all, he published 10 volumes of historical notes for the Wisconsin Historical Society and also a volume on the Battle of King’s Mountain (1780) that featured many of the settlers he corresponded with.

The Draper Manuscript Collection

Daniel Boone by Chester Harding, 1820

Draper never finished his biographies, but his manuscript collection provides the largest single first-hand account of the settlement of the Trans-Allegheny region. It includes a welter of materials, from Draper’s research notes, to correspondence, interview notes, extracts from newspapers and other published sources, muster rolls, transcripts of official documents, and much more. Organized into 491 volumes, the materials are divided into 50 series of various lengths by geographic area, subject, and individuals. These cover primarily events in the Trans-Allegheny region between the French and Indian War and the War of 1812—roughly from 1755 to 1815.

The collection contains voluminous military records, including Revolutionary War pension applicant information; descriptions of actions in the West during the Revolution; the War of 1812; Native American conflicts; and western exploration, such as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Original documents of the Revolutionary period comprise only a small part, however. The works and papers of a number of notable early Americans are also included, among them Joseph Brant, Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, John Donelson, James Robertson, and Simon Kenton.

Joseph Brant by Gilbert Stuart, 1786

Draper bequeathed his manuscript collection to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The archives are free and open to the public, and the original materials are available to researchers. Major research libraries around the United States also have microfilm of portions of the collection. You’ll find a list of these libraries on the Wisconsin Historical Society website.

All in all, this amazing collection is an invaluable resource for writer like me who focus on the early American frontier. Needless to say, I’m thrilled to own a little piece of it!

Is there a historical period, event, or person you’re particularly drawn to? Or do you own something related to a particular period in history that has a special meaning for you? If so, please share with our readers!

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases April 1, 2017. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.