John Maley

Who was John Maley?

John Maley was an American explorer and a contemporary of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Zebulon Pike. In 1815, he wrote a journal of his travels through the trans-Mississippi West in the early 19th century.

Researchers have discovered that the Maley journal that has been housed at Yale University for nearly 200 years is the second half of a larger work. The first half was found in a rare book shop in Philadelphia and acquired in 2012 by Southern Methodist University.

The second half of Maley’s journal as housed at Yale contains his writings on three trading expeditions, taking place between 1811 and 1813, up the Red River from Natchitoches through the interior of Louisiana and North Texas. Maley describes the customs of the Kashotoos, Hietans, Pawnees and other Native American tribes, as well as their relations with the Spanish in Texas. This document has been housed at Yale University since 1824.