The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific 1822-1829

Description

Editor: Dale, Harrison Clifford  (1885-1969)

Publisher: Arthur H. Clark Company

Pub Date: 1918

Binding: Hardcover (First edition)

Condition: Fair.  When I acquired this volume the front gutter was splitting and a couple of the first pages were loose.  I took the book to a bookbinder who repaired those defects.  New front endpaper and loose pages rebound.  Without dust jacket, as issued.  Deckled edge.  Some light scuffing to boards.  All corners bumped.  Wear to head and foot of spine.

Notes: The start of the book is Dale’s history of the fur trade in early 19th century America, and the beginnings of discovery of how big America was (is?).    William Henry Ashley (1778-1838) was an explorer, businessman, politician, fur trader (the Rocky Mountain Fur Company), and served in the War of 1812.   He is credited with creating the rendezvous, where mountain men, Indians, and traders would meet to exchange goods and news. In the early 1820’s Ashley and a partner hired a hundred men to explore the Plains and trap for furs.  Jedediah Smith (1799-1831) was one of the hundred.  Smith became a proficient explorer in his own right, bought out Ashley’s fur trading business, became one of the first white men to cross the Mojave Desert into Alta California, explored as far north as Oregon, and found the first viable route for migration to Oregon–the 20 mile wide South Pass (in Wyoming) through the Continental Divide.  He was also mauled by a bear.  Smith was killed by Comanche in Kansas in 1831, and his body was never found.  Ashley’s journal, Smith’s brief narrative to William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame), and the two journals of Harrison G Rogers, a member of Smith’s exploration company, form the bulk of the book.   Howes U.S. Iana D-21