Sacramento: A.J. Johnston & Co., 1890. First separate edition. 6.5" x 4.75", 47 pp, in original printed wrappers. Small chip at upper corner of front wrapper, some loss to backstrip, else fine. Originally published serially in the 1860s, in the California magazine Themis, Edwards' diary describes the first recorded cattle drive in California and offers valuable description of California over a decade before the gold rush. "The Willamette Cattle Company was the first cooperative venture among the Oregon settlers from the United States. In 1835, President Andrew Jackson sent William Slacum, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, to report on the situation in Oregon. When Slacum discovered that the Hudson’s Bay Company held a monopoly on cattle in Oregon, he persuaded the American settlers to unite to buy cattle in California and bring them back to Oregon. In January 1837 the Willamette Cattle Company was formed for this purpose. That same year some 600 head of cattle were brought back to Oregon. The success of this venture gave American settlers a growing sense of independence from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The author, who served as Treasurer of the Willamette Cattle Company, originally came to Oregon in 1833 with Captain Wyeth’s party. Edwards arrived in San Francisco on February 29, 1837. This day-by-day narrative ends on September 18, somewhere near Mt. Shasta, as the company attempts to reach the Willamette Valley. Edwards’s account of the six months spent in the Bay Area is among the most important early descriptions of pastoral California" (Dorothy Sloan, catalogue for Auction 15, Fine Collection of Californiana Formed by Daniel G. Volkmann Jr. Graff 1216; Reese (Six-Score 36, noting that "aside from its cattle interest ... the book is also a California and fur item"); Herd 747 ("This rare little booklet is written in the form of a diary and contains details of the earliest cattle drive"); Cowan p.192; Howes E-66; Streeter Sale V, 3008. (Item #22534)

Washington: 1848. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 30th Congress, 1st Session. Senate Executive Document 33. 447 p, bound in recent three-quarter leather and marbled boards. Fine. In mid-June 1846, Fremont helped to instigate the Bear Flag Revolt against Mexican authorities by American settlers in California's Sacramento Valley. Fremont's commanding officer, Brigadier General S.W. Kearney, ordered Fremont to cease his activities, but Fremont refused and was promptly court-martialed. In his defense, Fremont claimed that he had launched the revolt upon discovering that Mexico was on the eve of transferring California to England. The trial lasted from November 1847 to January 1848. Fremont was found guilty of mutiny and other charges, and sentenced to dismissal from the service. Cowan 91: "The charges were mutiny, disobedience of the lawful commands of his superior officer, and conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline....He was found guilty, and the sentence was dismissal. President Polk accepted the findings (except that relating to mutiny), but remitted the penalty, ordering Fremont to retain his sword and report for duty. Fremont, however, refused to accept the executive clemency and resigned." Decker 24: 122: “Fremont’s court-martial was the outcome of his refusal to recognize the authority of Gen. Kearney during the military conquest of California.” This was one of the most celebrated trials of the era, in part because Fremont's father-in-law, Senator T.H. Benton, threw himself with indiscreet energy into the quarrel. A few years later Fremont would be the first candidate for President nominated by the newly-formed Republican Party. Howes F369. Graff 1432. Sabin 25840. Cowan p.91. (Item #22496)

Paris: Dentu, 1802. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 8vo, pp. viii, 382, with folding map. Recent three-quarter leather and marbled boards, with new endpapers. Light foxing to map, else fine. Rather than a travel narrative, this work contains a somewhat disorganized assemblage of historical and political information and commentary. Streeter (1571) describes it as a "history of the French occupation of Louisiana with observations on the form of government, on Negro slavery and other general topics, with notes on the Indian tribes." Field says the work "is principally notable for "Two Vocabularies of the Savages," the Naoudoouessis and the Chipouais." Clark (II:76) suggests that the book may have been "written in a hurry when [Baudry] heard that Louisiana was returning to France to (1) assert the importance of that colony and (2) set down his thoughts on colonial administration in general, some of which are not bad, and on the development of Louisiana in particular. He mixes in a vast amount of extraneous material on the Indians (mostly non-Louisiana Indians), some history, and lists of fauna, flora, products, and insupportable generalizations (as a fair example, the air of New Orleans is salubrious, the women are moral, pink of cheek, and white of tooth)." The map, titled "Louisiane et Pays Voisins, d'Apres les Relations et les Cartes les Plus Recentes," shows most of what is now the United States, including early settlements on the Gulf Coast west of New Orleans and many native American villages and settlements. Wagner-Camp 1a; Howes B-234; Sabin 3979. (Item #22606)

Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 259 pp, with illustrations, 9 maps (some folding), bound in original green cloth. Slight mottling to cloth (less evident in person than it appears in our scan), else fine. Jenkins (Basic Texas Books #15) says "this monograph remains one of the best scholarly studies of the German migration into Texas." Based on extensive primary source research, Biesele's study describes the conditions in nineteenth-century Germany that led many to consider emigration, the formation of the influential Verein zum Schutze Deutscher Einwanderer in Texas (Society for the Protection of German Immigrants to Texas), the emigration of thousands of middle-class Germans to Texas, and their social, economic, and political participation their adopted homeland. (Item #22658)

New York: Francis P. Harper, 1903. First Edition. Two volumes in original blue cloth, pp xiv, 248; [249]-461, with illustrations and a map. Edition limited to 950 sets. Rubbing to spine ends, lower front corner of Volume II, bumped, else about fine. Howes C-391. A well-regarded scholarly biography of steamboat captain Joseph LaBarge (1815-1899), who piloted the "Yellowstone" and "Emilie" on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, transporting fur traders, miners, goods and supplies. (Item #22583)

Louisville: Hull & Brother, 1854. Hardcover. Good. Second edition (first issued in 1852 in an edition of 250 copies). 312 pp. in original blindstamped blue cloth, complete with three battle maps and a plate showing the death of Davy Crockett (not present in the first edition). Good only: early owner's name in red pencil on title page, rear free endpaper missing, wear to edges and head of spine, dampstaining visible on rear board, endpapers, and plates. Binding sound, text generally clean. Clark, Old South III: 298: “The preface states that the compiler, Cara Cardelle, pseudonym for Emmaretta C. Kimball, chanced to find among a friend’s papers a large stack of Texas letters with much information on the events of Texas history from 1819-1852. The letters were written by William B. DeWees to a friend in Kentucky....Although more of a history than a travel work, the thirty-one letters, written over a period of about thirty-three years, are unembellished pictures of the journey to Texas, personal incidents, and facts and events in Texas development.” Eberstadt (110: 252) describes the work as " a valuable first hand source book for the early days of Texas and the Southwest," noting that it includes description of a journey from Nashville to Arkansas in 1919, a buffalo hunt, a "trip to Nacogdoches and through the Caddo country; journey to San Antonio; the Toncoway Indians; capture and imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin; sufferings of the Texas settlers; with a history of their settlements; manners and customs; the Alamo; the Santa Fe Expedition; massacre of Dawson’s men; Indian depredations; the Cherokee War; Battle of Plum Creek, etc." Field 422, Rader 1131, Herd 671, Howes D-299. (Item #22531)

Cincinnati: H.W. Derby & Co., 1850. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 7.5" x 5", pp. 6, 349, in original blind-stamped black cloth with gilt spine lettering, housed in a cloth slipcase with leather spine label. Corners and a few spots on top edge rubbed, small stain on top edge of text block, previous owner's name (Sioux City, Iowa, merchant T.J. Kinkaid) stamped several times on front and rear endpapers, but overall a most attractive copy, clean and tight, with less wear than usually found. A classic account of the Santa Fe Trail. The seventeen-year-old Garrard joined a caravan in Westport Landing, Missouri in 1846 a Santa Fe wagon train led by Col. Ceran St. Vrain. He spent two months at Bent's Fort for before continuing on to Taos, where he attended the trial of some of the Hispano and Pueblo allies who had participated in a revolt against United States rule of New Mexico. Garrard wrote the only eyewitness account of the trial and hanging of six convicted men. He returned to Saint Louis in the summer of 1847. Graff 1513: "An important Southwest book by a perceptive observer and a thoroughly captivating writer." Wagner-Camp 182: "In the course of his travels, Garrard met several well-known figures of the last days of the fur trade including Jim Beckwourth, Kit Carson, and George Ruxton." Rittenhouse 236: "Garrard captured the sound of the trapper's language with a skill equal to Ruxton's, and this work remains one of the great classics not only on the Trail but of the entire Southwest." Field 594; Howes G-70; Streeter Sale I, 170; Rader 1538; Sabin 26687. (Item #22522)

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. House issue. Quarto, pp 181; 154; 30; 31, [1]; with two large folding topographical maps, one profile, eight color plates (Indian portraits and the interior of a Moquis house), eight folding panoramic views, 16 b/w plates (views and paleontology), and many illustrations in the text. This copy has a duplicate of Plate I (Robinson's Landing) as the frontispiece and lacks the correct frontispiece (Chimney Peak). It is otherwise complete, aside from the two geological maps that are rarely present. Bound in three quarter red morocco and red cloth, with marbled edges and endpapers. Some minor scuffing to the leather, internally a fine copy, with the bookpate of James Wickersham on the front pastedown, and his name stamped in gilt at the base of the spine. Wickersham (1857-1939) was an attorney and judge who served Alaska's delegate to the United States Congress for 14 years. He played a primary role in establishing the Alaska Territorial Legislature, the Alaska Railroad, Mt. McKinley National Park, and the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines. He was also a skilled mountaineer and the author of A Bibliography of Alaska Literature 1724-1924. This copy also has the ink stamp (on the profile) of Elwood Evans (1828-1898), who presumably owned it before Wickersham. Evans was an attorney, politician, and historian from Washington Territory who served as mayor of Olympia and briefly as acting governor of the territory. The Ives Expedition was sent to explore the Colorado River and determine the extent to which it was naviagble. Ives had a steamboat custom built and shipped to the west, led his party up the Colorado to the lower end of the Grand Canyon, and then traveled across the desert to Fort Defiance in Colorado. Farquhar (21) calls this report "one of the most desireable books in the Colorado River field, for it is the first that deals specifically with the river itself. Moreover, the illustrations are remarkable...two from photographs represent perhaps the first use of the camera in Arizona, certainly on the Colorado River....Ives and his staff added immensely to knowledge of the lower canyons, especially those now occupied by the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead." Howes I-92; Sabin 35308; Wagner -Camp 375; Wheat, Transmississippi, 947, 948. (Item #22559)