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Catalogue 256 Western Americana |
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Section III: Delevan to Gregg |
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Papers
on Book Collecting by William S. Reese
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58. [Delavan, James]: NOTES ON CALIFORNIA AND THE PLACERS: HOW TO GET THERE, AND WHAT TO DO AFTERWARDS. By One Who Has Been There. New York. 1850. [3]-128pp. Modern half morocco. Front wrapper, titlepage, two plates, and final page provided in facsimile. Internally clean and tightly bound. A decent copy (though with the titlepage, last page, and plates are in facsimile) of a gold rush rarity. Delavan travelled to California via Panama, made a quick fortune in the mines, and saw quite a bit of the rest of the region, including San Francisco and Sacramento. "This is one of the earliest diaries kept by an actual Gold Hunter and gives an unusually frank and detailed account of daily life at the diggings. Delavan was one of the original Feather River Party of ’49 and struck it rich at Rocky Bar, where in less than three weeks he took out over 100 pounds of the yellow metal. His book describes the trip to California – the San Francisco of 1849; extravagant prices; the Gaming Halls; the fortunes won and lost; life and observations in Benicia; Embarcadero (Sacramento); Sutter’s Fort; Culloma (sic); Mormon Island; Volcano Bar; Spanish Bar; Kelsey’s Bar; Feather River; North Fork; Rector’s Bar; San Joaquin; Stockton; Monterey, etc. Other sections of the book deal with the ‘Code Lynch,’ the Oregon immigration; the Indian Tribes; their depredations, etc.; methods of mining; traders and trading posts; kaleidoscopic conditions; manners and customs; routes; and advice to emigrants" – Eberstadt. "One of the most spirited accounts of the journey to California and life in the mines" – Kurutz. Very scarce on the market, with only the Clifford-Volkmann copy having appeared at auction in recent times ($18,400 at the Volkmann sale in February 2005). A wounded copy of a major gold rush rarity. KURUTZ 183a. HOWES D237, "b." GRAFF 1044. COWAN, p.164. ROCQ 15773. WHEAT GOLD RUSH 58. STREETER SALE 2628. CLIFFORD SALE 33. SABIN 10036. DECKER 23:95. EBERSTADT 104:38. $1750. 59. [Department of the Platte]: ROSTER OF TROOPS SERVING IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE. BRIGADIER GENERAL OLIVER O. HOWARD, COMMANDING. HEADQUARTERS, OMAHA, NEBRASKA. No. 5a. [Omaha]. Sept. 10, 1885. 12pp. Self-wrappers, stapled. Old stamp on front wrapper. Three binder holes in blank gutter. A bit tanned. Else very good. Scarce roster for the Department of the Platte, printed on an Army press, listing the officers, fort or outpost where each was stationed, and troops under their respective commands. Includes information for forts Bridger (Wyoming), Douglas (Utah), Laramie (Wyoming), McKinney (Wyoming), Niobrara (Nebraska), Omaha (Nebraska), Robinson (Nebraska), Russell (Wyoming), Sidney (Nebraska), and others. Lists Indian agencies within the department. $850. A Superb Western Map 60. [DeSilver, Charles]: A NEW MAP OF NEBRASKA, KANSAS, NEW MEXICO AND INDIAN TERRITORIES. Philadelphia: Charles DeSilver, 1857. Colored map, 17½ x 15 inches. Ad for the DeSilver firm on front pastedown. Folded into 16mo. contemporary cloth folder, gilt-lettered cover. Cloth faded. Lightly tanned, three small separations at cross-folds, but with no loss of text. A very good copy. Later edition, after a possible first of 1850, as well as editions of 1854, 1855, and 1856. Streeter possessed a copy of this 1857 edition, and writes of it: "Interesting map. Nebraska and Kansas Territories extend to the Rockies, with Kansas including much of what is now Colorado and Nebraska going to the 49th parallel. New Mexico Territory extends west to the Colorado River. The nine counties of New Mexico are clearly shown. The Oregon and other routes are indicated. Indian Territory and part of Texas shown." This edition of the map was copyrighted in 1856, though it bears an 1857 publication date. Not in Wheat’s Mapping the Transmississippi West, Rumsey, or Phillips’ Maps. OCLC locates only a single copy of this 1857 edition, at the Bancroft Library (possibly the Streeter copy). An important map of a politically contentious region in the years just before the Civil War. All the DeSilver pocket maps of Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, and Indian territories are rare, but this 1857 edition is extremely rare, this being only the second (or third?) copy of which we are aware. STREETER SALE 3101. OCLC 57657097. $7500. 61. Dimsdale, Thomas J.: THE VIGILANTES OF MONTANA, OR, POPULAR JUSTICE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. BEING A CORRECT AND IMPARTIAL NARRATIVE OF THE CHASE, TRIAL CAPTURE, AND EXECUTION OF HENRY PLUMMER’S ROAD AGENT BAND.... Virginia City, M.T. 1882. 241pp. Original printed wrappers. Spine ends chipped. One-inch horizontal tear in from gutter on front wrapper. Else quite clean and very good. Second edition. "Perhaps no book excells [sic] Dimsdale’s in presenting the picture of the lawless conditions that characterized the mining camps of the Rocky Mountain country. The author was editor of the Virginia City Montana Post and a participant in the extraordinary campaign against lawlessness" – Adams. Howes says of the first edition: "Not only the first, but textually the most important, book ever printed in Montana." The first edition has now become almost unobtainable, and this second edition is very scarce. HOWES D345, "aa." ADAMS SIX-GUNS 596. $1500. 62. Dobie, J. Frank: APACHE GOLD & YAQUI SILVER. Boston. 1939. xvii,[1],366pp. Color frontis. Plates and drawings by Tom Lea. Half cloth and boards, paper label. Extra spine label tipped in at rear. Fine. In plain dust jacket and publisher’s slipcase, including an envelope containing prints of Lea’s paintings used to the illustrate the book, as issued. This is the Sierra Madre edition, limited to 265 numbered copies, signed by Dobie and Lea. "Sequel to Coronado’s Children, focusing on New Mexico, Arizona and Sonora" – Sloan. "This fascinating book on lost mines contains some interesting material on the Apache Kid" – Adams. ADAMS SIX-GUNS 599. McVICKER A7a(I). DYKES, KID 266. SLOAN, THE LIBRARY OF DUDLEY R. DOBIE 357. $1250. A Great Rarity 63. Drips, Joseph H.: THREE YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS IN DAKOTA. Kimball, S.D. 1894. [4],139pp., including two pages of portraits. Small quarto. Later cloth, with original front wrapper pasted onto front board. Boards (and front wrapper) slightly worn and soiled, old library shelf label at bottom of spine. Institutional bookplate of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion on front pastedown. Moderate age-toning in margins. A very good copy. A very rare account of the Indian campaigns of 1863-65 in the Upper Missouri. Drips was a sergeant in Company L of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry. "The author participated in the Indian campaigns of 1863-5 under General Sully on the Upper Missouri, in North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. He was painstakingly precise in his description of various events, having kept a day-by-day journal. His descriptions of Indian battles include those at Fort Rice, Devil’s Lake, Knife River, White Stone Hill, the Yellowstone campaign, etc." – Decker. This is one of the great rarities of the Plains Indian wars. HOWES D505, "b." HOLLIDAY 317. GRAFF 1154. DECKER 31:97. $7500. A Dramatic Watercolor of British Lords 64. [Dunmore, Lord Alfred]: THE BUFFALO HUNT. [Probably in Manitoba, Canada. ca. 1862]. Watercolor on paper, 8¾ x 13½ inches, laid onto a larger ruled sheet. Unsigned. Title and attribution on Kennedy Galleries labels. Provenance: Kennedy Galleries; Collection of Edward Eberstadt & Sons. In excellent condition, with bright colors and sharp detail. A short closed tear, neatly repaired, is in the grass at the very bottom of left-center foreground. Attractive period-style decorated gilt frame, matted and glazed. This graphic image of a buffalo hunt, likely near Fort Ellice, Manitoba, in western Canada, was painted by a British nobleman visiting the West on an exotic sporting adventure. A hunter, carrying a buffalo rifle, has dismounted from a horse to inspect a fallen buffalo bull, while behind him three mounted hunters pursue more buffalo, cut from a large herd seen grazing on the horizon, with a mountain range as a backdrop. Close attention is paid to the rather formal attire of the hunters, who sport buckskin jackets, stiff white shirts, and broad-brimmed hats. The buffalo and horses are drawn quite well, with their power and speed clearly delineated. Kennedy Galleries attributed this painting to one "Lord Alfred Dunsmore" [sic], but it was actually executed by Honorable Alfred Murray, called by courtesy Lord Alfred Dunmore, younger brother of the 7th Earl of Dunmore. "Lord" Dunmore was in his late teens at the time of the expedition. He travelled to western Canada with the expedition of Viscount Milton and Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle, one of the most important early explorations of the Canadian far west. According the Marshall Sprague in A Gallery of Dudes, Dunmore delayed the expedition first by supposed illness and then by his sporting proclivities. "Cheadle was summoned off their route by Lord Southesk’s brother-in-law, Lord Dunmore, whose messenger said he was dying of jaundice. After two days of fatiguing forced march, Cheadle reached Fort Ellice, near the junction of Assiniboine and Qu’Appelle Rivers, to be told that his lordship felt very much better and was off hunting buffalo." This is evidently Dunmore’s illustration of his buffalo hunt after recovery. Dunmore was only one of many British aristocrats who visited the western frontier for sporting adventure; Sprague’s book describes the trips of many of them. In Dunmore’s case, he may have been inspired to go west by his brother-in-law, James Carnagie, the 9th Earl of Southesk, who hunted in the same regions in 1859-60 before returning to England to marry Dunmore’s sister. Southesk later described his trip in his book, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains (Edinburgh, 1875). A superb picture of western hunting at a very early date. Marshall Sprague, A Gallery of Dudes (Boston & Toronto: Little Brown, 1966), pp.68, 73, 83, 276. Charles Kidd & David Williamson, Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage (London: Debrett’s Peerage Limited and St. Martin’s Press), pp.410-12, 477-79, 1179. $19,500. 65. Eastman, Mary H.: THE AMERICAN ANNUAL: ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co., [1854]. 126pp. plus twenty-one illustrations. Frontis. Original brown cloth, gilt-stamped covers and spine, a.e.g. The gilt edges are particularly bright. Small label on rear pastedown. Very good. A nice copy of Mrs. Eastman’s work, also issued the same year as Chicora, illustrated by her husband, Seth Eastman. The plates mainly depict Indian life in the southwest Pueblos and in the Minnesota area, where the Eastman’s were stationed for some time. WAGNER-CAMP 238a:2. HOWES E18. $1250. 66. Emory, William H.: NOTES OF A MILITARY RECONNAISSANCE FROM FORT LEAVENWORTH, IN MISSOURI, TO SAN DIEGO, IN CALIFORNIA, INCLUDING PARTS OF THE ARKANSAS, DEL NORTE, AND GILA RIVERS. Washington. 1848. 614pp. plus two folding maps and sixty-seven plates. Original cloth, printed paper label. Cloth worn at spine ends and corners, label chipped. Bottom edge of first text leaf torn, with no loss of text. An occasional minor fox mark, but generally quite clean internally. Very good. The Senate issue of the Emory report, including the reports of J.W. Abert and Philip St. George Cooke. Together the three summarize the activity of the U.S. Army to the west of Santa Fe after the capture of New Mexico by the Army of the West. This copy of the Emory report lacks his large map, which was not included in all copies of this issue. The first of the smaller maps is Philip St. George Cooke’s "Sketch of Part of the march & wagon road of Lt. Colonel Cooke, from Santa Fe to the Pacific Ocean, 1846-7," which shows the route of the Mormon Battalion from Santa Fe to the Gila River. The other, "Map of the Territory of New Mexico," was compiled by lieutenants Abert and Peck after the conquest of New Mexico. Both are important contributions to western cartography. Abert’s report includes material on the Indians of New Mexico and their languages, as well as all of his views of New Mexico, the best group of early New Mexico views published. Wagner-Camp is in error in its collation of this edition, mistakenly calling for only forty plates, plus those of the Abert report. There are, in fact, more natural history plates. WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 505, 532. WAGNER-CAMP 148:7. ZAMORANO 80, 33. PILLING, PROOF-SHEETS 1207. COWAN, p.195. GRAFF 1249. HILL 561 (ref). RITTENHOUSE 188. TAXONOMIC LITERATURE 1669. HOWES E145. $1500. 67. Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning: A NEW MAP OF THE WESTERN STATES. New York. 1858. Folding pocket map, 26 x 33½ inches, with full period color. Bound into original 16mo. brown cloth boards, stamped in blind and gilt. Very good. This map shows the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota; and more importantly, the recently established western territories of Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. It is one of the best commercial maps of the period for the northern Great Plains, and one of the earliest maps to show Dakota. Kansas extends west to include present-day eastern Colorado. Nebraska includes much of the present-day Dakotas, Wyoming, and eastern Montana. Indian tribes are located throughout. Quite scarce. Not in Phillips or Rumsey. $2850. A Major Rarity of North Pacific Exploration 68. Erman, Adolph: REISE UM DIE ERDE DURCH NORD-ASIEN UND DIE BEIDEN OCEANE IN DEN JAHREN 1828, 1829, UND 1830...IN EINER HISTORISCHEN UND EINER PHYSIKALISCHEN ABTHEILUNG DARGESTELLT UND MIT EINEM ATLAS BEGLEITET. Berlin. 1833-1848. Five text volumes (including three folding handcolored maps, a color key to the maps, and four lithographed folding plates). Quarto geographical atlas of eleven lithographed views (two folding). Folio natural history atlas with vi,64pp. plus seventeen lithographed plates (two colored). Uniformly bound in three-quarter green morocco and green cloth, spines gilt. Occasional light tanning, some light scattered foxing. Natural history atlas with small ink stamp on both titlepages. Overall, a near fine set. In matching cloth slipcases. Text volumes untrimmed and unopened. One of the rarest and best – yet least-known – accounts of 19th-century exploration in northeastern Asia, Siberia, Russian America, and the northern Pacific Ocean. Erman’s study is even less well-known, however, for it’s significant and early scientific observations made in the Americas, including in Sitka and San Francisco in late 1829. The work is comprised of a three-volume account of Adolph Erman’s travels in 1828-30, a two-volume natural history text, an atlas of geographical views, and a natural history atlas. Erman contributed a great deal to the scientific and literary material regarding Russia and Russian America, and in 1844 he was awarded a medal from the Royal Geographical Society. His work was issued in parts over a span of fifteen years and is almost never found as a complete set. Erman, born in Berlin in 1806, was a scientist and traveller in the mold of Alexander von Humboldt. A physicist by training, in 1828 he undertook to travel around the world, departing with the company of Christopher Hantseen, which was to carry out magnetic measurements in Siberia. Erman travelled eastward across Russia, and when the Hantseen expedition turned back at Kyakhta, he proceeded onward at his own expense to Yakutsk and Okhotsk. He crossed the Sea of Okhotsk to Kamchatka and journeyed across the peninsula to the port of Petropavlovsk, where he met the ship of Leontii Hagemeister, who was supplying Russian colonies in Alaska. Erman travelled with Hagemeister to Sitka (where he apparently observed the sea otter pictured in the natural history atlas) and then on to San Francisco, Tahiti, the coast of South America, and then around the Horn to Europe. Several sources contend that Erman actually travelled back to Europe with the Russian expedition of Fedor Lutke (see Howgego, for example), but this appears to be incorrect, based on the chronology provided by Littke (see below). Erman’s textual narrative ends with him in Kamchatka in October 1829. He spent several years after his return to Germany preparing the manuscript of his travels, which was published in parts through the 1830s and 1840s. The text volumes describing his journey contain detailed observations on zoology, botany, geography, and ethnology, as well as accounts of the peoples and places he encountered. Included are descriptions of a trip down the Ob River, the culture of the Ostyanks and Samoyeds, a discussion of the geology and geography of the northern Urals, Yakutsk, and Okhotsk areas, and brief Yakut and Tungus vocabularies. Erman travelled across Kamchatka in the summer and fall of 1829 and describes his wanderings over land and by river, as well as details of the geography, geology, botany, volcanoes, zoology, meteorology, and ethnology of the peninsula. He also includes a vocabulary of the Kamchadal dialect. The two-volume natural history text contains observations on latitude and longitude, as well as geomagnetic studies and magnetic observations made on land in Siberia, Kamchatka, Alaska, California, and South America, as well as on the Pacific Ocean. Apart from the wealth of scientific studies and readings Erman made in Russia, he performed the same tests and reported the same results for Sitka, Alaska in November 1829, San Francisco in December of that year, all across the Pacific Ocean, and in Rio de Janeiro in the spring of 1830. The natural history texts, therefore, contain an impressive amount of early, accurate scientific material about Alaska, California, and South America. The plates in the geographic atlas (each of which contains at least two and up to four views) are without captions, but are keyed to the places described in the text volumes. They chiefly depict scenes in Kamchatka, showing forests, waterways, mountains and volcanoes. The natural history atlas features attractive lithographs of birds (the majority of the images), a sea otter from Sitka, fish, insects, and plants. An important work of travel and science in Asia and Russia, with significant scientific material on California and Alaska. SABIN 22770. ARCTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY 4661. HOWGEGO E17. NERHOOD, TO RUSSIA AND RETURN 185 (ref). BM NATURAL HISTORY II:539. NISSEN (ZOOLOGY) 1305. Peter Littke, "Who was A. Erman?" http://www.irah.org/frameset/articles/Erman.pdf (an article on the website of the Initiative for Russian American History). $35,000. 69. [Eskimo Newspaper]: THE ESKIMO BULLETIN. THE ONLY YEARLY IN THE WORLD. VOLUME III. Cape Prince of Wales, Ak. July 1897. [4]pp., printed in triple columns. Quarto. Two old horizontal folds. A few small closed tears at the fold edges, not affecting text. Very good. In a cloth clamshell case, leather label. A remarkable and fascinating newspaper issued yearly and printed by Eskimos in Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. The Eskimo Bulletin... began publication in 1893 and was intended to be issued once a year. Though it proclaimed itself "the only yearly in the world," its publication was even more infrequent than its annual goal. The present issue is the third volume and is dated July 1897. The fifth volume, the last one noted in the Union List of Serials, was produced in 1902. It was sponsored by the Alaska Mission of the American Mission School, founded and initially edited by Harrison R. Thornton, who was succeeded by W.T. Lopp. Cape Prince of Wales is located just north of Nome, Alaska, on the Bering Strait. The newspaper is a remarkable artifact of Alaskan Eskimo culture, filled with news about events in the region, and composed and engraved by Eskimos. "The founder and editor of this unique little annual newspaper – there was only one mail a year from Cape Prince of Wales – was Harrison R. Thornton, a graduate of the University of Virginia. Thornton, who was a skilled linguist, had gone to Alaska to make a study of the Alaskan Indian languages and to serve as a missionary. In this first issue he made a bitter attack on sales of whiskey to the natives – that summer he was murdered by drunken Eskimos" – Streeter sale, describing Volume I. Though edited by white men, The Eskimo Bulletin... is important for having been composed and illustrated by Eskimos. The present issue contains five woodcut engravings by the staff engraver, Oo-ten-na, and the type was set by three Eskimo compositors: Ke-Ok, I-Ya-Tung-Uk, and Ad-Loo-At. The typography is crude but very functional, exhibiting some instances of light inking and misspellings. The engravings show talent and include a portrait, a walrus head, and a scene of a reindeer pulling a sled. The price of Volume III was one dollar. As Streeter notes, there was only one mail per year in Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, resulting in news in The Eskimo Bulletin... that is alternatively fascinating, strange, slow, or wrong. The front page of this issue is a case in point. One of the lead stories, dated "Golovan Bay, Mar. 25" and coming by "special dog-sled dispatch" proclaims "Bryan Elected." The entire story reads: "Bryan is President, and U.S. is at war with Spain. This news comes from the Yukon." In two simple lines, therefore, the paper managed to misreport an eight-month story by proclaiming William Jennings Bryan the victor over William McKinley in the election of 1896, and to anticipate the outbreak of the Spanish-American War by eight months. A one-line story, buried on page 3, notes that the ship, Narwhal, which arrived at Cape Prince of Wales on May 24, brought news that McKinley was actually elected, and an editorial note observes that the story on page 1 was the result of a "practical joke played on a Yukon steamer." Perhaps it was too close to the July publication date to change the front page. Another front-page story reports that Laplanders were planning to colonize Alaska, and that reindeer were being tested as pack animals in the Yukon gold fields. A third article describes a process being used to distill molasses into rum. The longest article in this issue reports on the murder of Chief Kokituk, leader of the Selawhameets, who was stabbed and shot by two brothers in a drunken melee on Jan. 2, 1897. Kokituk’s brother, Okbaok, killed one of the attackers in retribution. Another article describes the monument for the newspaper’s founder, H.R. Thornton, paid for by his friends in Southport, Connecticut and erected at his grave in Alaska. Illustrated by a woodcut, it is described as "the most western, if not the most northern marble grave stone on this continent." Editorials applaud the decision by the U.S. Treasury Department to sell repeating rifles to Eskimos, call for increased mail service to Cape Prince of Wales, and rail against the evils of alcohol. Apparently editor Lopp had not learned the lesson of his predecessor. Local news is filled with brief tidbits such as "The squirrel crop was a failure" and "On account of the late Spring of ’96, there were not salmon berries last Summer." Another short story reads: "Sokweena, while herding reindeer, found a lynx hiding behind a tuft of grass. Being unarmed, he whipped it with his lasso until it cowered at his feet, when he was able to give it a blow with his fist, which crushed its skull." The final page prints the Lord’s Prayer in Eskimo, and reports glowingly on the increase in the Mission’s reindeer herd. Individual issues of The Eskimo Bulletin... are very rare. It is not listed in Littlefield and Parins’ American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1826-1924. Streeter had a copy of Volume I. OCLC and the Union List of Serials report a smattering of issues, mostly at institutions in Alaska. A very rare and desirable item, filled with fascinating news of Eskimo culture in Alaska, and wonderfully exhibiting native ingenuity and printing talent on the United States’ final frontier. WICKERSHAM 5071. UNION LIST OF SERIALS, p.1476. STREETER SALE 3541 (for Vol. I). OCLC 42302077, 9446269. $1850. 70. Ewell, Thomas T.: A HISTORY OF HOOD COUNTY TEXAS, FROM ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT.... Granbury, Tx.: The Granbury News, 1895. [4],161,[3]pp. plus 16pp. of advertising interspersed. Original gilt cloth. Cloth slightly spotted, hinges weak. Closed tear in title-leaf, printed on poor paper. Good. A rare Texas county history. The titlepage calls for a "Sketch of the History of Somervell County," not present here. Judging by the collation given by Howes, the latter occupied two leaves at the end of the text. However, this copy has far more advertising leaves than called for by Howes and agrees with the collation given by Jenkins. In any case, the history of Hood County, a quite early Texas county history, is complete. CBC 2475. HOWES E239. $1250. 71. Faulk, A.J.: SEVENTH ANNUAL SESSION. SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR A.J. FAULK, TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. Yankton, Dakota Territory: Geo. W. Kingsbury, 1867. 20pp. Original printed wrappers. Slight chip at head of spine, light fold line down center. Trimmed a bit close at the top, affecting the page number and running headline on final two leaves. Overall, about very good. A scarce and important early Dakota imprint. "Contains the earliest known printed reference to the separation of Laramie and Carter counties from Dakota Territory to form the new Territory of Wyoming" – Allen. Faulk describes a year of peace with the Indians, but he refers to the recent war between whites and Indians due to the "hostility of certain Indians to the Powder river wagon road, which, to the white race, had become a convenient if not indispensable thoroughfare to and from the mining regions of Montana." The final section deals with the protection of settlers in the Black Hills, including the suggestion that a treaty be made with a view to purchase the Black Hill country and the Bad Lands west of the Missouri. ALLEN, DAKOTA 51. $1500. 72. Field, Stephen J.: PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF EARLY DAYS IN CALIFORNIA, WITH OTHER SKETCHES...TO WHICH IS ADDED THE STORY OF HIS ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION BY A FORMER ASSOCIATE ON THE SUPREME BENCH OF THE STATE. BY HON. GEORGE C. GORHAM. [Washington. 1893]. 6,472pp. Original cloth. Bit frayed at extremities. A good, sound copy. Inscribed by the author. This is the second edition, after the first of 1880, and the first edition to include Gorham’s account of Terry’s attempted assassination of Field. Noted in print at the foot of the titlepage, "Printed for a Few Friends. Not Published." Field served on the legislature in California, San Francisco in particular. HOWES F117. KURUTZ 237b. $1000. Anonymous Account of the Gold Rush 73. [Fleming, G.A.]: CALIFORNIA: ITS PAST HISTORY; ITS PRESENT POSITION; ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS: CONTAINING A HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY FROM ITS COLONIZATION BY THE SPANIARDS TO THE PRESENT TIME...A MINUTE AND AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE GOLD REGION...INCLUDING A HISTORY OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT CONDITION OF THE MORMON SETTLEMENTS.... London. 1850. viii,270pp. plus seven colored engraved plates (one of which is a colored frontispiece, and another a colored engraved titlepage with an alternative title: "The Emigrants Guide to the Golden Land, Shewing Him When to Go, Where to Go, How to Go"). Lacks the map found in most copies. Later three-quarter red calf and cloth, spine gilt. Spine lightly rubbed and worn at ends. Bookplate on front free endpaper. Internally quite clean. A very good copy. Attributed to G.A. Fleming. An unusual work, of which there are several variants. The text is fairly comprehensive, and according to Cowan "considerably more complete than many of the contemporary accounts." Howes calls it "one of the fullest and most interesting of contemporary accounts." "The engraved frontispiece is one of the glories of Gold Rush literature" – Kurutz. The present copy agrees neither with the Streeter copy and those of Yale and the British Museum, which have two colored plates, a colored frontispiece, and a map; nor with Cowan, who calls for a third colored plate in the 1914 edition of his bibliography, but revises this to two in the 1933 edition. The Bancroft has a copy with seven uncolored plates, which may conform to our present copy. The coloration on the plates and title in this copy is handsome. Howes notes that a few copies have nine plates and a colored map (which he gives a "c" rating), but that most copies have only three colored plates (which he rates a "b"). Kurutz concurs and lists a total of nine plates and a map. A rare book in any iteration, this copy made quite attractive by the seven colored plates. COWAN, p.93. SABIN 9973. STREETER SALE 2623. KURUTZ 242. WHEAT GOLD RUSH 144. HOWES F178. FLAKE 1085. GRAFF 1347. NORRIS 536. $3000. 74. Foote, Henry Stuart: TEXAS AND THE TEXANS; OR, ADVANCE OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS TO THE SOUTH-WEST; INCLUDING A HISTORY OF LEADING EVENTS IN MEXICO, FROM THE CONQUEST BY FERNANDO CORTES TO THE TERMINATION OF THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. Philadelphia. 1841. Two volumes. viii,13-314; 403pp. Original cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Cloth faded, bumped at spine ends and corners. Text lightly tanned. Overall, about very good. A presentation set, inscribed by the author in pencil on the front fly leaf of the first volume: "To Noah H. Swayne, a beloved and esteemed friend, from the Author, H.S. Foote." An important contemporary history of the early days in Texas. "One of the most influential books on Texas in its time, this work is still of considerable value and interest" – Jenkins. The first volume includes five chapters on Mexican history, along with chapters on Spanish-American relations, the Burr Conspiracy, and James Long. There are also four chapters, described by Jenkins as among the best in the book, on the Fredonian Rebellion. The second volume treats the history of colonization and the Texas Revolution. "One of the best histories of Texas for the period covered" – Raines. "This is a very discursive account of Texas history down to the opening years of the Republic of Texas, but, with judicious skipping, a rather entertaining one" – Streeter. Eugene C. Barker has remarked that "one’s impatience with Foote’s betrayal of the historian’s obligation to tell the truth as he knows it gives way to amusement at the ingenuity of his grandiose distortions." Some copies (not this one) include James H. Young’s A New Map of Texas (Philadelphia, 1842), and it is asserted by several bibliographers that the publisher only inserted this map in remaining copies of the book in 1842. HOWES F238, "aa." GRAFF 1376. SABIN 25019. RADER 1425. RAINES, p.84. BASIC TEXAS BOOKS 63. STREETER TEXAS 1377. $2750. One of the First California 75. Foster, George G.: THE GOLD REGIONS OF CALIFORNIA: BEING A SUCCINCT DESCRIPTION OF THE GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, TOPOGRAPHY, AND GENERAL FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA: INCLUDING A CAREFULLY PREPARED ACCOUNT OF THE GOLD REGIONS OF THAT FORTUNATE COUNTRY. PREPARED FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS AND OTHER AUTHENTIC SOURCES. New York: Dewitt & Davenport, Tribune Buildings, 1848. 80pp. plus [12]pp. of ads. Frontispiece map. Original printed wrappers. Spine perished (but still sturdily bound), wrappers a bit soiled and with some small chips at edges. Impeccably clean internally, and a very good copy. Untrimmed. An odd and apparently unrecorded variant of Foster’s early and important book on the gold regions of California, with "Second Edition" printed on the wrapper, but the titlepage has no edition statement at all, which implies that it is a first edition titlepage. This copy also has the same number of advertisement leaves as Kurutz notes for the first edition (the number of which differs in subsequent editions). This would appear, then, to be the first edition titlepage and text of Foster’s work bound up in second edition wrappers. Edward Eberstadt called this "the first considerable pamphlet on the Gold Regions and but two others (Sherwood and Simpson) are contemporary with it." "Foster, in his eloquent and stirring introduction...correctly predicted that a fortune could be made by the enterprising blacksmith, wheelwright, carpenter, shoemaker, etc. This slender work is a useful anthology of some of the earliest reports of the gold discovery and features the writings of Farnham, Mason, Doniphan, Larkin, Folsom, Fremont, Colton, and articles from the June and August issues of the Californian" – Kurutz. The frontispiece map shows California from Los Angeles to Sutter Buttes, with the Gold Region encircled by a dotted line. According to Wheat, the map is one of the first to mention the Gold Region. An important early gold rush book, in an odd variant. KURUTZ 250a, 250b. GRAFF 1387. HOWES F287, "aa." MINTZ 160. ROCQ 15810. STREETER SALE 2529. COWAN, p.219 (3rd ed). SABIN 25225. WHEAT GOLD RUSH 77. WHEAT GOLD REGION 39. EBERSTADT 107:55-58. DECKER 24:68. HOWELL 50:85. $6250. 76. Fountain, Albert J.: BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, OF THE TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO. REPORT OF DONA ANA COUNTY. Santa Fe: New Mexican Print, 1882. 34pp. plus errata slip. Original printed wrappers. Neatly cut along spine, wrappers and leaves all separated. A few minor chips. Old accession number on front wrapper. Overall very good, with presentation blindstamp of New Mexico historian L. Bradford Prince. A rare and quite extensive report on the resources, land, and prospects of Dona Ana County, in the southeastern corner of the territory of New Mexico. Fountain devotes sections to agricultural pursuits, grape culture in the Mesilla Valley, alfalfa, canaigre root, pasture lands, stock-raising potential, and a lengthy article on mining (particularly in the Organ Mountains, the Jarrilla district, and Lake Valley). The primary towns of Las Cruces, Hillsborough, and Mesilla are described, as are a number of smaller locales. The NUC locates only three copies of this rarity, those at Princeton, New York Public, and the Huntington. This is the deaccessioned NYPL copy (they decided that microfilm would do for them). $1000. Essential Publication 77. Fremont, John C.: REPORT OF THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS IN THE YEAR 1842, AND TO OREGON AND NORTH CALIFORNIA IN THE YEARS 1843-44. Washington. 1845. 693pp. plus twenty-two plates and five maps (three folding, one in original rear pocket). Original cloth. Spine ends a bit frayed. Some minor scattered foxing, minor tears in folds of map in rear pocket. Overall very good. The Senate issue of the Fremont report, certainly one of the most important single pieces of Western Americana. In various editions this report was more widely read than any other account of the West before the gold rush, and the text and map had a profound effect on the routes frequented during the great period of emigration. The maps include the huge folding "Map of...Oregon & North California in the Years 1843-44," with many lakes and rivers traced in color. Fremont also made substantive contributions as a naturalist, mainly through the work of John Torrey, who accompanied the expedition. WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 497. RITTENHOUSE 229. WHEAT GOLD REGIONS 3266. TWENEY 89, 22. HILL 640. ZAMORANO 80, 39. MINTZ 165. COWAN, p.223. HOWES F370. SABIN 25845. WAGNER-CAMP 115:1. GRAFF 1437. TAXONOMIC LITERATURE 1852. Coats, The Plant Hunters, p.322. $2500. Firsthand Account 78. Gass, Patrick: A JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF A CORPS OF DISCOVERY, UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPT. LEWIS AND CAPT. CLARKE [sic] OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER MISSOURI THROUGH THE INTERIOR PARTS OF NORTH AMERICA TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN, DURING THE YEARS 1804, 1805 & 1806. Pittsburgh: Printed by Zadok Cramer, for David M’Keehan, Publisher and Proprietor, 1807. 262pp. 12mo. Contemporary sheep-backed boards, leather label. Boards rubbed, worn along edges and hinges. Early signatures on pastedowns and fly leaves. Lightly tanned, occasional foxing. Old stain on final five text leaves. Overall about very good, in original condition. In cloth chemise within half morocco and cloth slipcase. The rare first edition of the earliest published firsthand account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, by a member of their party. Gass was a sergeant who, by order of Lewis and at the insistence of Thomas Jefferson, kept a journal of the expedition’s activities, and this book seems closely based on that document. "...One of the essential books for an Americana collection" – Streeter. STREETER SALE 3120. GRAFF 1516. SABIN 26741. HILL 685. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 12646. SMITH 3465. WAGNER-CAMP 6:1. HOWES G77, "b." LITERATURE OF THE LEWIS & CLARK EXPEDITION 3.1 $22,000. The Rare Illustrated Edition 79. Gass, Patrick: JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF A CORPS OF DISCOVERY, UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPT. LEWIS AND CAPT. CLARKE [sic]...DURING THE YEARS 1804, 1805, AND 1806.... Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey, 1811. 262pp. plus six plates including frontispiece. Contemporary calf, leather label. Boards and spine slightly worn, hinges expertly repaired. Remnants of red wax on front and rear pastedowns (perhaps originally used to secure paper wrapper for binding?). Mid-19th-century ownership inscription of Joseph E. Smith, 1847, on front free endpaper, additional ink inscription on front pastedown. Slight age-toning and soiling. A good copy. Third American edition, after the first of 1807, of the first published firsthand account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The illustrations, first published by Mathew Carey in an edition issued in two states the previous year, are evidently based on the observations of a member of the party, and are the only extant illustrations of the famous journey. Gass was a sergeant who was charged, by order of Lewis and at the insistence of Jefferson, with keeping a journal, and this book seems closely based on that document. "One of the essential books for an Americana collection" – Streeter, describing the first edition. This edition, based on the experience of several veteran dealers, is the rarest. SABIN 26741. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 22891. WAGNER-CAMP 6:6. HOWES G77. GRAFF 1520. LITERATURE OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 3.6. $7500. 80. George, Henry: OUR LAND AND LAND POLICY, NATIONAL AND STATE [wrapper title]. San Francisco. 1871. 48pp. plus folding colored map. Original printed wrappers. Text block stitched together and loosely laid into wrappers, and apparently never bound in. Wrappers a bit soiled and worn. Map with a long closed tear, with no loss. One text leaf torn in outer margin, not affecting text. Overall, about very good. In a cloth chemise. Henry George’s rare first book, putting forth in early form some of the ideas for which the economist and reformer became famous. George holds that the private ownership of land is injurious to society as a whole, and argues that public lands should not be given in large grants to railroads, speculators, or corporations, but to actual settlers and workers themselves, who need the land and natural resources to create wealth. "With tremendous power and farsightedness, he attacks the railroads and land grants, boldly giving names and specific cases of wrongdoing. The especially prepared map shows the immense extent of the ‘Railroad Reservations’ in California" – Howell. George also calls for taxes on land values and the abolition of other taxes that he sees as injurious to workers and investors as well. Much of the text relates specifically to land issues in California, often involving mining and railroads. An important and rare work of American economic thought. HOWES G105, "aa." COWAN, p.233. HOWELL 50:482. $3500. A Significant Addition 81. [Gibbs, George]: [PASTEL PAINTING OF A SCENE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, PROBABLY THE COLUMBIA RIVER, WITH INDIANS LANDING CANOES ON A RIVER-BANK, AND SNOWCAPPED MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE]. Oregon or Washington. [based on sketches made ca. 1850-1855, but painted somewhat later]. Pastel on card, 19½ x 39 inches. Signed lower left: "Gibbs." Framed and glazed in a period hardwood frame and gold gilt liner. The painting, with excellent, bright colors, is in fine condition. This beautiful painting of three Indians laying up two canoes on the bank of a river in wooded mountainous terrain is the work of George Gibbs (1815-73), ethnographer, mapmaker, geologist, historian, attorney, and, for nearly twelve years, an explorer, artist, and administrator in the Pacific Northwest. The scene is likely the western entrance to the Columbia River Gorge, with the Cascade Mountain Range in the near distance. The painting shares several geographic and artistic touchpoints with the annotated on-the-spot drawing from 1850 that Gibbs made farther east on the river at Oak Point, illustrated in David Bushnell’s Drawings by George Gibbs in the Far Northwest, 1849-1851. The painting is signed in a slightly stylized version of the signature found throughout Gibbs’ personal and professional papers. Gibbs probably learned to draw and paint while attending the Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, the first experimental prep school in the country, founded by future historian George Bancroft, and Joseph Green Cogswell, later director of the first great public library in the United States, the Astor Library. Gibbs grew up surrounded by great American art. "Gibbs’ father commissioned Gilbert Stuart to paint Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe; these portraits hung in Gibbs’ childhood home at Sunswick Farms, Astoria, New York. Stuart also painted portraits of ‘Colonel’ George Gibbs and Laura Wolcott Gibbs, his parents" – Stephen Dow Beckham. Papers from Gibbs’ adolescence indicate the development of his interest in science and in outdoor life; and one very interesting letter, a harbinger of a career to come, written in 1833 from Boston to his sister, Eliza, includes an account of seventeen-year-old Gibbs’ encounter with John James Audubon (Wisconsin Historical Society): "Dear Sister, I have just returned from a visit to Mr. Audubon. The Audubon. But I will tell you all in order. Saturday I went to see the prints of his birds at the Athenaeum. They are superb, of full size on elephant paper. Turkeys & eagles as well as small birds and large as life & the colouring & execution beautiful. They are all of them represented in the act of seizing their prey or in some natural and striking position. The landscapes birds butterflies animals etc are very fine. His son paints the flowers & branches of trees on which many rest, from nature, they are very beautiful. He has not near finished his collection, though about two hundred are done... I killed [a moth] this morning with nitric acid, and by way of introduction agreed to take him to Mr. Audubon’s & Aunt Ruth who had been before went to. Mr. A was unwell & we took the pleasure of seeing him. He is a complete original & a remarkable man. [Audubon was] extremely glad of the moth & Mr. A [illegible] that I would accept of a little shell he had picked up on the coast of Florida as a remembrance. [Audubon] has a large collection of stuffed birds as a reference for description. He showed me some of the original paintings. The feathers look like real ones every division accurately transferred...." Failing to gain appointment to West Point because of family political ties, Gibbs earned a Harvard law degree, then began a desultory, unenthusiastic, unprofitable law practice. "[In 1843, Gibbs became librarian of the New-York Historical Society], cataloging the collection and steering it toward an emphasis on American subjects. [Gibbs started another law firm], but his work for the historical society [which he genuinely enjoyed and committed himself to] absorbed more and more of his time. "The excitement over the discovery of gold in California finally dislodged Gibbs completely from his law practice, and in 1849 he left New York for St. Louis, Missouri. Joining a march of the Mounted Riflemen, he traveled overland from Fort Leavenworth to Oregon City. On the trip he made many drawings and kept a journal, portions of which were published in the New York papers. His lively entries described the climate and landscape, life in camp, and encounters with Sioux Indians and emigrants on the Oregon Trail. "Gibbs settled in Astoria, Oregon, near the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1850 he was appointed deputy collector of the port, but he resigned later that year in the aftermath of having embarrassed his superior by an overzealous prosecution of the customs laws. In 1851 he joined Reddick McKee on an expedition to draw up land treaties with Indian tribes west of the Sacramento Valley. In five months McKee’s group met with nearly 10,000 Indians and concluded five treaties. Gibbs, who had already been interested in Indian languages, compiled vocabulary lists of fifteen indigenous tongues and worked on maps of the region. In 1852 he tried his hand at prospecting in northern California with less than impressive results. By the end of the year he was back in Astoria, again as a customs collector, but when Franklin Pierce took office in 1853, Gibbs lost his political appointment. "Gibbs soon found other work. In 1853 George B. McClellan hired him as a geologist and ethnologist to help survey a railroad route to the Pacific. In 1854 Gibbs left Oregon for good, settling near Fort Steilacoom in the Washington Territory on a farm he called ‘Chetlah.’ He was rarely there, however, continuing his surveying and conducting ethnological research. Working for the Indian Commission in the territory, Gibbs helped shape Indian policy. He argued for keeping Native Americans on their traditional homelands to preserve the cultural and linguistic diversity that he knew was dissolving quickly on reservations. He also campaigned for the use of Indian place names, which he often noted on the maps he made. Gibbs served briefly as the acting governor of Washington Territory and was appointed brigadier general of the militia in 1855. "In 1857 and 1858 Gibbs was again in the field, this time surveying the 49th parallel between the United States and Canada for the Northwest Boundary Survey. Working for Archibald Campbell, he traversed the border from the Pacific to the Rockies. Gibbs took every opportunity to add to his knowledge of Indian languages, and also collected animal, insect, and plant specimens, many of which he sent to scientists like Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray" – Bethany Neubauer, American National Biography. Raymond Settle’s introduction to The March of the Mounted Rifleman, which draws from the journals made by Gibbs and that expedition’s leader, Major Osborne Cross, endorses the importance of Gibbs’ western sketches: "As an artist Gibbs exhibited considerable talent, both in sketching outdoor scenes and in drawing from life. He made what was perhaps the first drawing of Shoshone Falls, and sketched various scenes in eastern Oregon, on the Columbia River, and while crossing the Cascade Mountains...[In 1851, while associated with Oregon Territory Governor John P. Gaines in the making of treaties with the Calapooya Indians, and later that same year with Reddick McKee], Gibbs made many drawings...numerous drawings." Bushnell notes that Gibbs’ sketches of the Pacific Northwest impressed Seth Eastman, who incorporated them into his own work. Eastman’s sepia drawing, "Humboldt, California, 1851," later made into an engraving for Schoolcraft, is annotated: "S. Eastman from a sketch by G. Gibbs" (Seth Eastman – A Portfolio of North American Indians, pl. 47). George Gibbs authored, usually under the imprimatur of the Smithsonian Institution, several important books on Indian languages and dialects, and tribal life, in the Pacific Northwest. His scholarship in such works as Notes on the Tinneh or Chepewyan Indians of British and Russian America (1867) and Alphabetical Vocabularies of the Clallam and the Lummi (1863) was so meticulously researched and well-illustrated that historian William Goetzmann calls Gibbs "one of the founders of scientific studies in the Far West." Gibbs’ notes and interpretations of 19th-century treaties between Indian tribes and federal and state governments (the drafts for those treaties are often in his handwriting) are used to this day to argue lawsuits involving American Indian interests, many concerning the building of casinos on reservation lands. Gibbs also wrote books concerning American law, as well as a near propagandist history of the Federalist Party, Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams (1846). which began as a biographical study of his great-grandfather, Declaration of Independence signer Oliver Wolcott, the senior, and his grandfather, Oliver Wolcott, a United States Treasury Secretary and governor of Connecticut. Terrible health, rheumatic gout, kept Gibbs out of the U.S. Army during the Civil War, though he did volunteer. "He became an important member of the Loyal National League and the Loyal Union Club. During the latter part of his life he lived in Washington, D.C. [‘in the Smithsonian tower!’ (Beckham)], where his extensive knowledge of the northwestern Indians [and his collection of their artifacts] was often employed by the Smithsonian Institution" – DAB. Artwork by George Gibbs is rarely found in the marketplace; Artnet and AskArt do not report any works having come into the market. He donated the majority of his western sketches to the Smithsonian Institution. The Peabody Museum at Harvard University owns a small holding of his sketches, as does the National Park Service collection at Fort Vancouver. Aside from the present example, we are not familiar with any other large scale painting by Gibbs – nor is the leading authority on Gibbs, Lewis and Clark College professor Stephen Dow Beckham, who has written about Gibbs since his 1970 dissertation, "George Gibbs, 1815-1873: Historian and Ethnologist" – making this newly discovered, quite gorgeous, picture a significant addition to the art canon of the American Northwest. Who Was Who in American Art II, p.1277. GROCE & WALLACE, p.256. ANB VIII, pp.915-17. DAB VII, pp.245-46. David Ives Bushnell, Drawings by George Gibbs in the Far Northwest, 1849-51 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1938), passim. Raymond W. Settle, ed., The March of the Mounted Riflemen...as Recorded in the Journals of Major Osborne Cross and George Gibbs... (Glendale, Ca.: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1940), pp.22-27, 273-327. George Gibbs, letter to Eliza Gibbs, dated Boston, Ma., March 17, 1833; located at Wisconsin Historical Society, Gibbs Family Papers, Box 1 / Folder 7 www.wisconsinhistory.org. Sarah E. Boeheme, et al, Seth Eastman. A Portfolio of North American Indians (Afton, Mn.: Afton Historical Press, 1995), p.125. William Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863 (Lincoln, 1959). Stephen Dow Beckham, "George Gibbs, 1815-1873: Historian and Ethnologist" (Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, 1970); correspondence, January-February 2006. $75,000. 82. Green, Thomas J.: JOURNAL OF THE TEXIAN EXPEDITION AGAINST MIER; SUBSEQUENT IMPRISONMENT OF THE AUTHOR; HIS SUFFERINGS, AND FINAL ESCAPE FROM THE CASTLE OF PEROTE. WITH REFLECTIONS UPON THE PRESENT POLITICAL AND PROBABLE FUTURE RELATIONS OF TEXAS, MEXICO, AND THE UNITED STATES. New York. 1845. 487pp. plus eleven plates, including frontispiece, and two plans (one folding). Original blindstamped cloth. Head and toe of spine bit frayed, occasional light foxing, else very good. Green enlisted as a volunteer for the retaliatory expedition into Mexico after the Mexican pillage of San Antonio. He co-led an unauthorized attack on the town of Mier on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande on Christmas day, 1842. The attempt to take over the town failed, and Green and the other Texans were taken as prisoners and led on an arduous overland trek to the Mexican fortress, Perote, near Vera Cruz. In what is known as the Black Bean Episode, some of the Texans were forced to draw beans from a jar, and those drawing black beans were executed. This was in accordance with Santa Anna’s order that one in ten of the prisoners be shot as outlaws. After several months of hard labor, Green and a few others managed a dramatic escape from Perote. The events are recounted in vivid detail, and Dobie has commented that the author "lived in wrath and wrote with fire." The handsome engraved plates depict battles, executions, the Perote stronghold, Green’s escape, and other dramatic scenes described in the account. Sam Houston was incensed at the publication of Green’s book, which implicated Houston as the responsible party in the deaths of those Texans who fell during the expedition. In a speech in the U.S. Senate, Houston declared that the copy in the Library of Congress should be "expelled therefrom, and given to some of the sewers of the city." "The most important account of the tragic Texan expedition against Mier" – Jenkins. "Green’s is one of the most exciting accounts of the tragic affair of the Texian Expedition. As a participant Green was able to write a vivid and terrifying tale. He was particularly bitter toward Sam Houston and believed Houston was responsible for the deaths of those Americans shot as brigands" – Graff. HOWES G371. BASIC TEXAS BOOKS 80. STREETER TEXAS 1581. RADER 1670. JONES 1104. RAINES, p.98. SABIN 28562. GRAFF 1643. DOBIE, p.55. $1250. The Map a "Cartographic Landmark" 83. Gregg, Josiah: COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES: OR THE JOURNAL OF A SANTA FE TRADER DURING EIGHT EXPEDITIONS ACROSS THE GREAT WESTERN PRAIRIES, AND A RESIDENCE OF NEARLY NINE YEARS IN NORTHERN MEXICO. New York & London. 1844. Two volumes. 320; 318pp. plus two maps (one folding) and six plates. Original gilt cloth, both volumes rebacked with original backstrips laid down. Some foxing. Small tear in upper right margin of folding map, with loss of 3 x 1-inch piece of map image. Binding of first volume lacks the gilt pictorial stamp of Mexican horseman, thus probably a married set. Overall a good set. First edition, second issue, with a dual New York and London imprint in the first volume. One of the landmark books of Western Americana. Gregg’s book is acclaimed by all sources as the principal contemporary authority on the Santa Fe Trail and trade, the Indians of the south plains, and New Mexico in the Mexican period. J. Frank Dobie calls it "one of the classics of bedrock Americana." It gives a lively, intimate and personal account of experiences on the prairies and in northern Mexico. The "...Map of the Indian Territory Northern Texas and New Mexico showing the Great Western Prairies..." is by far the best map of the region up to that time. Wheat states: "Gregg’s map was a cartographic landmark...’one of the most useful maps of this region at that day.’" WAGNER-CAMP 108:1. RITTENHOUSE 225. GRAFF 1662. STREETER TEXAS 1502a. FLAKE 3716. HOWES G401. WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 482. DOBIE, p.76. STREETER SALE 378. SABIN 28712. $4500. |
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Papers
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