This project seeks to create an accessible scholarly digital edition of Captian Harry Gordon's Journal from the 1766 Survey and Diplomatic mission. This project displays relative documents and maps in a visually appealing way to encourage interest in the scholarly task of digital editing and colonial America.

     This display will illuminate one example of the human hardship and achievement needed to understand space in North America. Through military journals, maps, and correspondence of the 1766 expedition, an interactive, digital edition will present to the public the first inland hydrography of North America. 

     As NASA, NRO, and the USGS continue to seek geographic data expanding human knowledge of our nation and planet, the history of exploration in North America grows deeper. In 1763, after the British victories in the Seven-Years War, British scholarship began a massive campaign to quantify and understand North America. Surveyors began mapping the St. Lawrence River system and the British coastline from Mobile to Hudson Bay. These surveys moved inland to better understand the geographic space, hoping to tame the continent for British economic development.

     The missions and achievements of the early-modern British state contributed greatly to the young United States’ capabilities to grow the nation. The military expedition of 1766 left behind numerous journals and correspondence, each supplemented by geographic surveys and maps. A digital scholarly edition of the 1766 expedition and associated works can lay a foundation for scholars to evaluate the military and scientific actions of the British Empire prior to the American Revolution.

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