Travels In The Interior Of America, In The Years 1809, 1810, And 1811; Including A Description Of Upper Louisiana, Together With The States Of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, And Tennessee, With The Illinois And Western Territories, And Containing Remarks And Observations Useful To Persons Emigrating To Those Countries.

JOHN BRADBURY

Publication: Printed For The Author, by Smith and Galway, 1817, Liverpool

First Edition. Three-quarter Leather and Original Boards. xii, 364pp. Preface. Errata tipped-in after Contents. "Born in Scotland, [Bradbury] lived long in England where he became skilled in botany and other natural history specialties and arrived in the United States in the summer of 1809. He was a guest of Jefferson at the White House and made St. Louis the center for his explorations into the northern Plains by way of the Missouri River. In 1812 he went with the Astorians from St. Louis up the Missouri to the Arikara villages. From there he accompanied Ramsay Crooks to the Mandans. Rather than accompany the Astorians on to the Pacific coast he instead returned to St. Louis on a Manuel Lisa boat. After a four month bout with fever he went to New Orleans, enroute enduring the great shocks of the New Madrid earthquake, describing it vividly. Bradbury returned to England where because of the War of 1812 he was forced to remain for several years, then came back to the United States, making a tour of the Middle West."--Dan L. Thrapp. "During the course of the journey Bradbury met Daniel Boone who, at the age of eighty-four, had lately returned from his spring hunt with nearly sixty beaver skins. Bradbury relates John Colter's story from Colter's lips..The appendix includes an account of Stuart, Crooks, and McClellan's trip from Oregon to Missouri."--Wagner/Camp/Becker 14:1. "Bradbury left New Madrid, Missouri, only a day ahead of the first series of earthquakes rocked the central Mississippi region. Bradbury's account of these singular phenomena is particularly valuable...This book deserves to be classed as one of the most accurate and pleasingly written travel accounts of this period in American history."--Clark, Travels In The Old South II-137. Also included is an Osage Indian vocabulary, as well as a Catalogue of some of the more rare or valuable plants discovered in the neighborhood of St. Louis and on the Missouri. Our copy has been professionally rebacked in leather, retaining the original boards and endpapers . Ex-library copy with the bookplate of "Public Library Duluth,Minn.". Previous owner's name written neatly in upper corner of title page. Perforation stamp of the library imprint on title page and first page of first chapter. Small number stamped on verso of title page, and near bottom of dedication page and first page of first chapter. Otherwise an exceptionally clean, tight copy of this important work. The errata slip, present here, is often missing, as it was in the Streeter copy.