(#166399) A journey to California, 1841 the first emigrant party to California by wagon train the journal of John Bidwell introduction by Francis P. Farquhar. JOHN BIDWELL.

A journey to California, 1841 the first emigrant party to California by wagon train the journal of John Bidwell introduction by Francis P. Farquhar. Berkeley, California: The Friends of the Bancroft Library, MCMLXIV [1964]. 26x17.5 cm, pp. [1-2: blank] [3-8] 1-55 [56: blank] [1-2] [1] 2-32: facsimile [1-6: blank], folded map, text printed in red and black, original blue cloth, with plaid pattern printed in black, title stamped in gold on the spine panel, fore-edge untrimmed. First printing of the second separate edition. "John Bidwell was a young, itinerant school teacher and part-time surveyor in Ohio and Iowa who found his way to western Missouri in 1841. There he joined a group of other young adventurers in an attempt to cross overland to the Mexican Province of Alta California. They broke their own trail west, crossing from Salt Lake to the Carson River, and then over the Sierra Nevada and Down the Stanislaus River, thus becoming the first party of American immigrants to make such a crossing" (Wagner, Camp and Becker [1982] 88. This edition, with a 5-page introduction and bibliography by Sierra Nevada historian Francis P. Farquhar, was issued as number 12 in the series of keepsakes issued by The Friends of the Bancroft Library for its members, designed and printed by Lawton Kennedy. It includes a facsimile of the original edition printed at a town in western Missouri sometime between the winter of 1842-1843 and the summer of 1844, the only known copy of which, lacking its cover and title page, is now in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkley. Cowan (1933), pp. 51-52. Howes B433. A fine copy without dust jacket as issued. (#166399).

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