Trip to the Yellowstone National Park in July, August, and September
Item #73566
STRONG, William E. A Trip to the Yellowstone National Park in July, August, and September, 1875. Washington. 1876. 4to. 143pp. plus two folding maps, seven plates, and seven mounted photographic portraits. Orig. 3/4 morocco and cloth boards, gilt ruled and lettered. 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. HOWES S-1083, "b." Traveling through Wonderland, p.49. Streeter Sale 4101. Graff 4014. Phillips, American Sporting Books, p.364. A presentation copy, inscribed by Strong on a front fly leaf: "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 Pres. Benjamin Harrison in 1882. An interesting journal of a 53 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 brevetted 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.
Price: $19,500.00