Jedediah Smith And His Maps Of The American West.

MORGAN, DALE & CARL I. WHEAT

Publication: California Historical Society, 1954, San Francisco

First Edition.Folio. Ltd. to 530 copies. Cloth, 86 pp., 4 Maps in text, 3 of them folding + 3 Large Folding Maps in pocket at rear. Printed by Lawton Kennedy. Foreword by Carl I. Wheat. A scholarly study of this now-famous explorer and his contributions to the cartography of the American West. This important work analyzes Jedediah Smith's influence on Early Western Maps: Brue's 1833 Map of North America, Brue's 1834 Map of Mexico, Gallatin's 1837 Map of the Indian Tribes of North America, Burr's 1839 Map of the United States, Wilkes 1841 Map of Upper California, and Wilkes 1841 Map of the Oregon Territory. In 1953, Carl Wheat discovered a copy of a map of Fremont's 1st and 2nd expeditions which was heavily annotated by George Gibbs, with material relating to Jedediah Smith. The information Gibbs onto this map was obviously copied from Jedediah Smith's own manuscript map that had somehow made it to Oregon. It was probably there in 1841 and consulted by Wilkes when he drew his map and remained there until approximately 1850-1851, when it was apparently bought and taken to Washington, where it disappeared. This is the first publication of the 'Fremont-Gibbs-Smith' Map, and is undoubtedly as close as we will ever get to Smith's own map. Smith was probably the West's single greatest explorer and this work is an exceptionally important contribution to our knowledge of his activities. This attractive volume is a major achievement by 2 great western scholars, and adds greatly to Jedediah Smith's ever-increasing recognition as a western explorer of primary importance. A clean, fine, bright copy protected in custom slipcase. Several items are laid-in: the folio-size Original Prospectus; a color artist's print of Jedediah Smith; and a variety of pieces issued by the California Historical Society, the Pacific Center For Western Historical Studies, and the Jedediah Smith Society of the University of the Pacific.