Exploring the Great Salt Lake: The Stansbury Expedition of 1849-50
Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust - University of Utah Press, 1989. First Edition. 889pp. Octavo [24 cm] Light gray cloth with the title on the backstrip. Very good/Very good.
Both of the large maps: 'Map of a reconnoissance between Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River, and the Great Salt Lake in the Territory of Utah' and ' Map of the Great Salt Lake and adjacent country in the Territory of Utah' are present in pocket attached to the rear pastedowns. Both maps are bright and in very nice condition. According to Wheat: "A good many details were added for the country lying between the established Oregon-California trail and Fremont's return from California in 1844, and these, together with the new cartography of the Great Salt Lake region, make the Stansbury expedition map one of the most important of its decade." Item #11083
ASSOCIATION COPY. Inscribed by the editor to Harold Schindler on the verso of the half-title: "To Hal Schindler a fellow Utah Westerner and premier historian Brigham D. Madsen." A handful of instances of marginalia in pencil by Hal Schindler.
This is Madsen's comprehensive work on the Stansbury Expedition. Captain Stansbury commanded the detachment of the Army's Topographical Engineers which was directed in 1849 to explore and report on the Great Salt Lake Basin. Of particular interest were the newly established Mormon settlements, and the routes and passes through the Rockies for emigrants and possibly a railroad.
"Dr. Madsen's pioneering efforts at researching Stansbury's expedition are apparent in his thoroughgoing compilation of journals, maps, letters, and published documents. In addition to Stansbury, principal members of the party whose original diaries were used include Lieutenant John W. Gunnison, surveyor and second in command; John Hudson, a young English artist and draftsman; and Albert Carrington, a leading Mormon official and Brigham Young's private secretary who became the active foreman of the crew under Stansbury. Chapters covers Stansbury's journey across the plains, his reconnaissance of routes from Fort Bridger to Salt Lake and Fort Hall, his winter in Salt Lake in 1850, his survey of the Great Salt Lake, his return east, and the publication of Stansbury's report Expedition to the Great Salt Lake, and John W. Gunnison's The Mormons." - from the jacket.
Price: $75.00