Biographical Sketch of the Life of William B. Ide: With A Minute and
Item #69440
[IDE, Simeon]. A Biographical Sketch of the Life of William B. Ide: With A Minute and Interesting Account of One of the Largest Emigrating Companies. (3000 Miles over land), From the East to the Pacific Coast. And What is Claimed as the Most Authentic and Reliable Account of "The Virtual Conquest of California, in June, 1846, By the Bear Flag Party." [Claremont, N.H.]: Printed for the subscribers, [1880]. [2],239,[1]pp. Half title. 12mo. Original blue cloth stamped in black and gilt. Some staining and soiling to boards, minor edge wear. Hinges tender, bookplate removed from front pastedown. Internally clean. Very good. Presentation copy of the first edition, inscribed by Simeon Ide to the Hon. Uriel Crocker on a front flyleaf. Also includes a brief pencil correction on p.93 likely in Ide's hand. William Ide emigrated to California in 1845. In 1846, after rumors that the Mexican Republic was going to expel all non-citizens, he led a group of settlers in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolt after the California Bear Flag raised as they took control of the Sonoma pueblo. Ide was named Commander of the California Republic. Most of the party afterwards joined Lt. Col. John C. Fremont in seizing California from Mexico. Uriel Crocker was a founder of leading Boston publishers Crocker & Brewster, and later sat on the board of several railroad companies including Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, the South Pacific Railroad, and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad. "This SKETCH contains an account of the early years of W.B. Ide, recollections by his daughter of the family's trip across the plains to California in 1845, and an account of the Bear Flag revolt of 1846 as told by Ide to his brother in 1849, and in a letter to a Senator Wambough which, as Ide died in 1852, must have been written within a few years of the event. [An] interesting account of the overland journey of 1845 and important source on the beginnings of American rule in California in 1846..." - Streeter. The work is also important in that it is one of the few overland journals written from the point of view of a woman (Ide's daughter, who at eighteen accompanied her father west in 1845), and is unique in its exclusive treatment of the Bear Flag Revolt. Howes speculates that this first edition, printed by the author at the age of eighty-six on a handpress, "was prob.
Price: $5,000.00