Archives West Finding Aid

The Edson papers are largely made up of bird notes, such as species accounts and journal notes for various trips in Northwestern Washington. There are several journals of other trips to several sites in the same area. There are species accounts of mammals. The collecting catalogs for birds and mammals are present. The ornithological correspondence is present, with letters to and from early workers all over North America and in the Pacific Northwest in particular. The original manuscripts for many of the published technical bird papers published by J. M. Edson are present. Manuscripts for various public lectures are present.

This collection of notes, manuscripts and correspondence is of great value to our understanding of early ornithology in the Pacific Northwest. The species accounts contain the notes for many sightings of birds that are now essentially absent from western Washington, and several sites in the San Juan Islands. The journal notes leave no doubt to the conditions under which so much of the early natural history work in this area was carried out. In the notes there are many first recorded observations of several species for the area. Th journal notes probably provide the first extensive recorded observations of an ornithologist in the San Juan Islands. The observations of the breeding seabirds there are particularly valuable. The correspondence gives a view into the thoughts of several other early workers in Washington. The Caurinus Club, and later the beginnings of the Pacific Northwest Bird and Mammals Society are contained in several letters. Of interest are the many letters to and from William L. Dawson near the turn of the century.

I first became aware that J. M. Edson kept detailed notes when I was reading the two part paper he published in the Murrelet in the 1920's. In that set of papers he published the times and dates that he and Dawson arrived and departed from specific islands in the San Juan Islands in 1905. He also gave exact numbers and the identity of birds and eggs collected. Thus, I started a search to find living relatives of J. M. Edson, with the hope that somewhere his notes were still being held. After a year and one half, and just a couple of contacts, I received a message that the notes were in existence. Garrett Eddy and I together went and picked up the notes in Seattle from Dianne Weston and Frank Brown. This inventory is part of the work that is being carried out, as time permits, on the notes. Most of the material has now been microfilmed, and several microfiche sets have been made. The microfilming was made possible by a donation from Garrett Eddy. The microfiche sets are being placed in the hands of the family, interested researchers, several institutions still to be determined, and I am keeping one set and the original microfilm. My set will eventually be donated to a proper archive. I have made photocopies of the correspondence, several of the journals, and the bird species accounts. We are now in the process of making transcripts of the journals, since several of the journals are now hard to read. As the transcripts are completed copies will be placed with microfiche sets. This process will take a while but it is certainly worth the effort. If all goes well, hopefully much of the material can be collected together and published: that is the goal. Special thanks must be given to the family of J. M. Edson for making the material available to me. The family must also be thanked for permitting all the original material to be placed in the Archives, University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington, Seattle. -Steven M. Speiah Olympia, Washington 6 January 1985