Trey Berry Visits

Dr. Trey Berry displays the original journal kept by Sir William Dunbar and the compass given to the expedition by Thomas Jefferson.

Dr. Trey Berry, historian, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, visited Honors Seminar today and told of the Dunbar-Hunter expedition up the Ouachita River in the winter of1804-1805. That expedition was a trial run for a longer one, never conducted (for fear of the Osage tribe), up the Red River.

The Dunbar-Hunter expedition went from Natchez to Hot Springs, Arkansas, following the course of the Ouachita River. The explorers spent three weeks in the Hot Springs area and were the first to describe it scientifically.

Berry told how unexpectedly difficult it was to plan, execute, and fund a documentary film about the expedition. What he had thought would be a one-month project lasted a full three years and cost over $100,000. The result, however, was a one-hour documentary film, The Forgotten Expedition, produced by AETN and other sponsors including Ouachita Baptist University and the University of Arkansas. That film can be viewed in its entirety by clicking HERE.

Berry and his group discovered, on the last day of filming in Natchez, that members of the Dunbar family still possessed artifacts from the expedition. One of those was the original journal kept by Dunbar. Thomas Jefferson received a transcribed copy of that original journal and it now resides at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. The original journal is kept at Ouachita Baptist University. Students and scholars may obtain free copies of it on digital media upon request.

The other item kept by the Dunbar family, also now at Ouachita Baptist University, was the compass given to the expedition by Thomas Jefferson. He gave a similar compass to the Lewis and Clark expedition as well.

At the end of his talk, students were able to look at the journal and to hold the compass. Many students took pictures of both with their smartphones.

Berry summarized by saying that students should always be open to exploring new opportunities to expand their knowledge and added that his own work on the film had opened many doors for him since.