Discovery of Yosemite and the Indian War of 1851, which led to that event

331p., no ads as called for. Twenty-one indexed illustrations including portrait and map. Signed Hardcover in variant green publisher's cloth, stamped in black East Lake design with diagonally placed Yo Semite in gilt. Gilt title and author stamped spine. Matte/coated brown endpapers. Copyright page reads: "Stereotyped and printed by the Chicago Legal News Company." Presentation copy, signed in pencil on front fly: "presented to Miss Irene Bunnell by her uncle, the Author. Hill-Water, Minn. Sept 5th 1881." Additionally ownership notes: "Dr. Howard A. Kelly", and 'bought from Miss Owen, 1920". Prospectus for the book, printed single-sided on pink paper, tipped in rear. Cloth rubbed, corners showing most, with line of fray in surface cloth just along head of spine, very straight, with hinge rather strained but intact. A very good copy of this seminal work, with publication ephemera, and unusually hard to find family association and signature. Cowan II, p. 29; Currey & Kruska 27; Farquhar Yosemite 15a; Howes B954.
Containing Bunnell's account of his exploration and the actions of the Mariposa Battalion, which became the first non-indigenous discoverers of the Yosemite Valley. The majority of what is known about Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahnechee was from Bunnell's written accounts. Bunnell served as a surgeon in the US War with Mexico and Civil War before settling in Minnesota. In Discovery, he goeson to chronicle the unit s march from its camp near Agua Fria into the mountains down the South Fork of the Merced River. Bunnell recalls his comrades reactions to the natural grandeur they encountered in theYosemite Valley as well as the trivia of camp life and encounters with the native tribes they were sent to pacify. The book concludes with chapters of the Valley s history after 1851, discussions of the region s floraand fauna, and a chapter on the discovery of the sequoias and their later exploitation. (2409) (Inventory #: 30637)