Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax

Springfield, Massachusetts: Samuel Bowles & Company, Hurd & Houghton, 1866. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover, full brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine, blindstamped ruled borders to boards, brown clay-coated endpapers, large folding map as frontispiece, 7-3/4" tall, 452 pp. + 2 pp. publisher's ads. Map color is nice, a few tape reinforcements, but generally attractive, front hinge probably repaired at some point, owner's name to title page, small burn hole to ads (no text loss). Generally, a nice clean copy. During the Reconstruction era, Schuyler Colfax (then Speaker of the House, but soon to be Vice President under Ulysses S Grant), traveled (truncated) across the Western United States, and the book includes his views of early Los Angeles, a conversation with Brigham Young, observations of nature, including the Sequoias, etc. Although partly a rousing Republican political book, it is primarily of interest for its narrative and map of the barely-settled West. (Inventory #: 002011)