A TRIP TO THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK IN JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER, 1875

Strong, William E., Gen.

Verlag: Washington, 1876

143pp. plus two folding maps, seven plates, and seven mounted photographic portraits. Quarto. Original three-quarter morocco and cloth boards, ruled and lettered in gilt. Front hinge starting, leather chipped in places, corners and spine extremities worn. Contemporary presentation inscription on front free endpaper. Some wrinkling to photo mounts, images fine. Light tanning, scattered light foxing. About very good. A presentation copy, inscribed by Strong on the front flyleaf: "Hon. Jesse Spalding / Compliments of / Wm. E. Strong / Chicago / Nov. 16 1876." Spalding (1828-1904) was an important figure in the Chicago lumber business during the second half of the 19th century. Politically well-connected, he was eventually appointed as a director of Union Pacific Railroad by President Benjamin Harrison in 1882. An interesting journal of a fifty-three-day hunting and fishing trip to Yellowstone via rail, stage, horseback, and the Missouri River, undertaken by Strong in the company of Secretary of War William Belknap, Gen. Randolph Marcy, and Gen. James Forsyth, in the summer of 1875. The narrative of the trip to Yellowstone includes descriptions of Salt Lake City and the Mormons, Virginia City, and Fort Ellis, and the balance of the narrative is devoted to Yellowstone, with rapt descriptions of the beauty of the area. While hunting and fishing they killed three buffalo, five deer, shot scores of birds, and caught some 3,000 trout in the Yellowstone River. The portraits depict Strong, Marcy, Belknap, Forsyth, Col. George Gillespie, Lieut. Gustavus Doane, and Gen. W.B. Sweitzer, and the plates include sketches of Fort Ellis, hot springs and Castle Geyser, and Yellowstone Lake. Strong was a Chicago businessman who was breveted a brigadier general during the Civil War, and who travelled extensively in the West. The Yellowstone National Park Archives has Strong's own copy of this book, in which he recorded the names of sixty-two friends to whom he presented copies, leading Dean Larsen to surmise that not more than a hundred copies were printed. The Streeter copy brought $250 in 1969, and then reappeared in 2001 at Sotheby's where it sold for $14,400. A scarce account, accorded a "b" rating by Howes, and not listed in Flake. HOWES S1083, "b." TRAVELING THROUGH WONDERLAND, p.49. STREETER SALE 4101. GRAFF 4014. PHILLIPS, SPORTING BOOKS, p.364. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM53160

Bibliografische Details

Titel: A TRIP TO THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK IN ...
Verlag: Washington
Erscheinungsdatum: 1876