1790. EGAN, Howard. Pioneering the West, 1846 to 1878.... Richmond,
Utah: Howard R. Egan Estate, 1917. 302 [1] [12, index] pp., text illustrations
(some full-page, mostly photographic). 12mo, original beige pictorial cloth.
Lower cover lightly soiled, otherwise fine, with the added 1942 Utah State
Historical Society index.
First edition. Paher, Nevada 542: “The
Utah Historical Society published a long-needed 12-page index to this book in
1942.” $150.00
1791. EICKEMEYER, Carl & Lilian Westcott Eickemeyer. Among
the Pueblo Indians. New York: Merriam Co., [1895]. 195 pp., frontispiece
portrait of authors (standing before their wagon and with Lilian in full,
heavy Victorian attire), plates (from authors’ photographs). Small
4to, original green pictorial cloth with silver lettering on upper cover
and spine. Light shelf wear, otherwise a very fine copy with ink ownership
inscription on front free endpaper. Laid in is a bookmark illustrated with
silhouettes of a man and woman who resemble the authors.
First edition. Saunders 1597. This unpretentious travel
account outlines the New York authors’ journey by prairie schooner to San
Ildefonso, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, and “Ranches de Taos.” At Cochiti,
the residents staged a spirited game of gallo, involving wild and reckless
horsemanship and an unlucky rooster (two photos). The authors describe the Pueblo
practice of communal herding (horses, sheep, goats, and burros), noting that
they obtain their horses from Navajo horses traders (photos of Native American
saddle, mesquite corral, and mounted Navajo horse traders). Lilian Westcott Eickemeyer
was a noted photographer, and her husband Carl Eickemeyer was the son of German-American
inventor Rudolph Eickemeyer (see next entry). $175.00
Item 1791
Presentation Copy Signed by Deming
1792. EICKEMEYER, Rudolf. Letters from the South-West. [Astor
Place, New York: Press of J. J. Little], 1894. 111 pp., plates and text illustrations
(including frontispiece of author riding a horse) by E. W. Deming. 4to, original
three-quarter brown morocco over marbled boards, paneled spine with raised
bands. Joints cracked, spine worn and chipped, otherwise a very good but fragile
copy. Presentation inscription to “Friend Butcher” (perhaps photographer
Solomon D. Butcher?) signed by author and artist.
First edition. Dykes, Fifty Great Western Illustrators (Deming
43). Herd 750: “Scarce.... Letters written by an educated New Yorker
seeking health in the Southwest, in which he gives some information on the cowboy.” Howes
E84. The author, an electrical engineer who fled Germany in 1848, invented a
hat-curling machine and designed motors for an elevator company (later to be
known as Otis). Eickemeyer traveled from New York to San Antonio and on to El
Paso and Santa Fe. He quotes a letter written by his son Carl (see previous entry)
at El Paso in 1893, describing ranches in the El Paso area and around Hueco Tanks:
“I have spent a good deal of time with the cow-boys
down in this section, taking trips out to their ranches and into the mountains
with them, and have gotten a fair insight into the cattle business. There are
only a few losses that the ranchman here has to guard against. He does not have
to worry about cattle being frozen, taken sick, or straying very far from the ‘cow-camp,’ which
is generally situated near the tanks or springs where they come to get water....
Now and then a cattle thief will start at the northern part of the State, with
a few head of cattle, and pick up others from the different ranches all along
the Rio Grande, where he will cross with them into Mexico. In this way they sometimes
collect a herd of many hundred cattle, which they sell the Mexicans. At other
times the thieves are killed by some of the cow-boys before they reach their
destination.”
In the latter section of the book, the author narrates his
travels in Santa Fe and New Mexico, where artist Deming’s horse was stolen
by Apache or Navajo. The author states that most of Deming’s illustrations
in the book were made from life. $350.00
Item 1792
1793. EL PASO MUSEUM OF ART. The McKee Collection of Paintings. El
Paso: [Designed by Carl Hertzog for] El Paso Museum of Art, [1968]. 66 [1]
pp., frontispiece, text illustrations (many in color). 4to, original green
cloth with pictorial label. Very fine in publisher’s glassine d.j.
First edition, cloth issue. Lowman, Printer at the
Pass 225A: “This book is a thing of exceptional beauty. One of the
printer’s finest achievements in recent years.” The emphasis of the
McKee collection is Southwestern art. Some of the paintings included are “Cowboys” by
W. Herbert Dunton, “Ranch Wandering” by W. H. D. Koerner and “Cattle
Drive” by Theodore Van Soelen. $50.00
1794. [EL PASO SADDLERY CO.]. Catalogue # 61-B 1980-81. El
Paso: El Paso Saddlery Co., 1980. [1] 44 [1] pp., text illustrations. Square
8vo, original beige pictorial wrappers (stapled, as issued). Other than slight
staining to wraps, fine, with price list and order form laid in.
Catalogue of stockman accoutrements, such as saddles, holsters,
knives, and belts. $25.00
1795. ELDER, Paul. The Old Spanish Missions of California:
An Historical and Descriptive Sketch...Illustrated Chiefly from Photographs
by Western Artists. San Francisco: [Tomoyé Press for] Paul Elder
and Company, 1913. v [1] 89 [1] pp., printed on thick grey paper, numerous
tipped-in photographs printed on matte finish paper (by A. C. Vroman and
others). 4to, original grey gilt-lettered boards with photograph of Mission
San Gabriel on cover. Very fine in discolored d.j. Difficult to find in collector’s
condition.
First edition. Cowan, p. 193. Levin & Morris, Art
of Publishers Bookbindings 88. Weber, The California Missions, p.
30: “Filled with delightful sketches in prose, poetry and photography.” For
almost five decades, Paul Elder operated the most significant bookstore in San
Francisco, and from 1898 to 1917, at the height of the American Arts & Crafts
movement, he published and printed books in his Maybeck-designed bookshop. Elder’s
Tomoyé Press, run by printer John Henry Nash, strove to create “the
book beautiful.” This venture launched Nash’s career and paved the
way for San Francisco’s fine presses of the 1920s and 1930s.
This beautifully executed Arts and Crafts book contains interior
and exterior photographs of the missions and a history of each establishment.
Peripheral mention of sheep and cattle raising is found: “The live stock
of each Mission was an extensive part of the activities, and as there were large
herds of cattle, sheep and horses, a good number of men and boys were engaged
in their care. They soon became most efficient as horse-trainers and surpassed
their teachers in the use of riatas which they braided from rawhide. They were
daring riders, and fearless hunters, roping the mountain lion and even bringing
in the dangerous grizzly bears for their bear and bull fights, with no other
weapon than the riata. As sheep and cattle herders they had an instinctive ability....
The time of the rodeo, when the cattle were rounded up for examination
and counting, was set apart as a period of feasting and pleasure and of visiting
from one Mission another.... Neophytes were frequently granted a vacation of
a fortnight, in which they could visit their pagan relatives in the rancherias” (pp.
67-68). $125.00
1796. ELDER, Paul (comp.). California the Beautiful: Camera
Studies by California Artists with Selections in Prose and Verse from Western
Writers. San Francisco: Paul Elder and Company, [1911]. [2] v [1] 72
[3] pp., printed on thick brown paper, numerous tipped-in photographs printed
on matte finish paper (photographers include Arnold Genthe, A. C. Mudge,
W. E. Dassonville, et al.). 4to, original half natural burlap over tan gilt-lettered
boards with tipped-on photograph of Mission San Gabriel on cover. Very fine
copy. Difficult to find in this condition.
First edition. Cowan, pp. 192-93. A beautiful fine
press collection of photography and writing in homage to the natural beauty of
California. Among the contributors are John Muir, Ina Coolbrith, Joaquin Miller,
Helen Hunt Jackson, George Sterling, Frank Norris, and Bret Hart.
Included among the selections is Marshall Ilsley’s poem “An
April Day on the Hope Ranch” in Santa Barbara, with accompanying photograph
taken on the ranch (much of which is now an upscale real estate development,
although equestrian and bike trails remain). Thomas Hope, an Irishman who worked
as a Texas cowboy, eventually moved to Southern California and acquired two former
Mexican land grants (over 6,000 acres) that bear his name today. $125.00
1797. ELDREDGE, Zoeth Skinner. The Beginnings of San Francisco
from the Expedition of Anza, 1774, to the City Charter of April 15, 1850,
with Biographical and Other Notes. San Francisco: Zoeth S. Eldredge,
1912. 433 + [6] 444-837 pp., frontispiece, numerous plates (vintage prints
and photographs, including Turrill and Miller daguerreotype of Mission San
Francisco de Asis in 1849), maps (some folding). 2 vols., 8vo, original green
cloth, t.e.g. Light shelf wear, spines sunned, otherwise fine, partially
unopened. Attractive contemporary engraved bookplates of Nancy Campbell on
front pastedowns. San Francisco bookseller Newbegins’ small navy blue
printed label over imprint of Vol. 2.
First edition. Cowan, p. 193: “Of great historical
value.” Rocq 7963. The author discusses the importance of the hide and
tallow trade to the early development of San Francisco: “The opening of
the ports to foreign trade was a great stimulus to California development and
the secularization of the missions opened the lands to settlement. Cattle raising
became a great industry and each year more ships came to the coast for hides
and tallow” (p. 212).
The reproduction of Duflot de Mofras’ 1840 map of San
Diego is accompanied by a caption pointing out the location of the hide houses
mentioned by Dana. Other ranching material: Cattle rustling undertaken by the “Indians
of the Tulares” and the resultant vexation and retribution of the rancheros;
biographies of early rancheros; “The Great Ranchos”; “Private
Ranchos in 1830”; land grants; “The Outfit of a Caballero”;
California horsemanship; secularization of missions (plight of missionized Native
Americans, loss of their herds and pastures, slaughter of thousands of cattle
for hides when secularization orders came); etc. $125.00
1798. ELIAS, Solomon Phillip. Stories of Stanislaus: A Collection
of Stories on the History and Achievements of Stanislaus County. Modesto,
[1924]. 344 pp. 8vo, original green and brown embossed cloth gilt. Fine,
with author’s signed presentation inscription.
First edition. Cowan, p. 193. Rocq 14981. In the 1850s,
Stanislaus County, California secured its reputation as a cattle county: “The
assessor’s report for 1857 is particularly full and complete and demonstrates
the advance that the county had made in the cattle industry” (p. 13). The
county’s first industry was grazing: “The low hills of the eastern
part of the county and the plains were used for pasturage of stock that roamed
at will over the unfenced and unpre-empted lands of the government. The waters
of the rivers were easily accessible. It was the romantic day of the cowboy and
the vaquero” (p. 17).
This county history contains information on early ranchers
in the area (Horr, Newman, Elliott, Hall, and others). Irrigation projects in
the 1870s transformed the county into an agricultural mecca, and many chapters
are devoted to the evolution of irrigation and water rights. Other subjects include
Native Americans (treaties, James Carson’s descriptions of Tulare Valley
Natives), Estanislao (brigand-rustler, or disenfranchised neophyte?), Vigilante
era, Hill’s and Knight’s ferries, pioneer newspapers, mining, political
history, Modesto, LaGrange, Tuolumne City, Turlock, etc. $75.00
1799. ELIAS, Solomon Phillip. Stories of Stanislaus.... Modesto, [1924]. Another copy. Light wear, but generally fine copy. $75.00
1800. ELIEL, Frank. Our Little Old Home Town, Dillon, Montana:
Reflections and Reminiscences Recorded by.... [wrapper title]. N.p.,
n.d. [33] pp. 8vo, original tan printed self-wrappers, stapled (as issued).
Wrappers with a few minor marginal chips, otherwise a fine copy.
First edition. A brief local history, encompassing
the latter part of the 1800s. The author has this to say about the cowhands of
Dillon: “The Independence Day celebration was a regular annual event, with
its patriotic oration, parade and general hilarity. The cowboys and horse wranglers
enjoyed the day and were a prominent feature of the festivities. But our cowboys
were not of the type now pictured in the movies. The ten-gallon hat was unknown.
Our cowboys took their work seriously” (p. 10). $45.00
1801. ELKINS, John M. Indian Fighting on the Texas Frontier....
Written for Captain Elkins by Frank W. McCarty. [Amarillo: Russell & Cockrell],
1929. 96 pp., photographic plates. 8vo, original grey pictorial wrappers,
stapled (as issued). First and last leaves with small tears at staples (as
usual), otherwise fine. With contemporary ink note “Written by Jess
Brown” above the chapter on “The Mavericks of the Frontier.”
Some might consider this a “second edition.” (The
very rare first edition was published at Beaumont in 1908 under title Life
on the Texas Frontier; see Howes E90.) McCarty clearly had the original 1908
in hand and based this work on it, but in doing so, he substantially rewrote
the original text, both embellishing for personalities and removing some of the
boring details such as troop organization. McCarty made significant additions
from other sources, probably the reminiscences of Elkins, then aged 88. Especially
interesting is that McCarty identifies a white woman recaptured from the Indians
(unnamed in the 1908 edition) as Cynthia Ann Parker, and rather than a short
comment, he devotes a whole chapter to her in the present version (pp. 33-36).
Also, three new chapters are added at the end, authored by Mrs. Ellen Johnson
Elkins [Elkin’s wife]: “Old Phantom Hill and its Tragedies,” “The
Story of Old Fort Chadbourne,” and “Interesting History of Old Camp
Colorado.” Pages 92-96 are an additional new chapter by W. N. Alexander: “Born
under the Lone Star Flag.”
Campbell, p. 177. Rader 1292. Tate, Indians of Texas 2366: “In
addition to recounting his role in Texas Ranger duties along the northwestern
Texas frontier during the 1860s and early 1870s, Captain Elkins offers his firsthand
description of the recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker by Rangers.” The author
was a cattleman, Texas Ranger, and first sheriff of Coleman County. In an unvarnished
manner Captain Elkins relates many violent encounters with Comanche rustlers
and raiders who made ranching highly hazardous in the early days: “Battle
of Marlin’s Ranch” (1860s); “The Fate of a Cruel Band” (raid
of Wallis Brown Ranch, 1873); “The Fate of the Ranchman” (1864 attack
on Mrs. Twiggs’ Ranch and the Bragg Ranch in which “several women
used a gun equally as well as the men”); “The Courageous Frontier
Women”; “The Shrewd Work of General Sherman” (1874 campaigns
of Ranald Mackenzie).
“The Theft of a Thousand Cattle” describes one
of the most abortive cattle drives in range history. In 1871 Richard “Uncle
Rich” Coffee, whose ranch was forty miles southwest of Camp Colorado on
the Concho River, rounded up his herd of more than a thousand cattle for a trail
drive to New Mexico. Comanches watched preparations from their hiding places,
and as the trail drive began, they attacked, killing one cowboy, wounding Coffee’s
son, and stealing the entire cattle herd and fifty horses. “This left Uncle
Rich practically no property at all. In one day this ranchman lost the savings
of a lifetime” (p. 50). $125.00
Item 1801
1802. ELLARD, Harry. Ranch Tales of the Rockies by...”Poet
Lariat of the Ranches.” Cañon City, Colorado, 1899. 103
[1] pp., frontispiece (photographic portrait of author in fancy fringed buckskin),
plates (photographic and humorous line drawings), text illustrations. Small
4to, original green pictorial cloth, t.e.g., bevelled edges. Gilt on front
cover slightly dull, otherwise fine.
First edition, “Author’s edition.” Range
verse, including “The Anglomaniac in the Rockies,” wittily addressing
the “nuisance” of the influx of Englishmen on the Colorado range.
Some of the unattributed photographs document working cowboys (roundup, branding,
herding to Denver, “Volunteers for the Cowboy Regiment” [Wyoming
Rough Riders]). $75.00
1803. ELLENBECKER, John G. The Jayhawkers of Death Valley. Marysville,
Kansas: [Privately printed], 1938. [2] 130 pp., numerous photographic illustrations,
one foldout. 8vo, original terracotta printed wrappers. Minor wear to fragile
wraps and one small stain on title, otherwise a fine copy.
First
edition. Eberstadt, Modern Narratives of
the Plains and the Rockies 155. Edwards, Enduring Desert, pp.
75-76: “Contained in this remarkable book are numerous photographs
of the Death Valley pioneers and their descendants.... A thesaurus of information....
An imperishable personal record of the majority of those intrepid pioneers
who immortalized Death Valley.... Now hard to come by.” Howes E91.
Mintz, The Trail 141: “A sought-after book that covers material
not found in the Manly or Stephens narratives.... Contains the fragmentary
diary of Asa Haynes, not found elsewhere.” Rocq 2301.
Ranching hospitality to the rescue—almost at the end
of their rope, the Jayhawkers found succor in the Santa Clara Valley after a
perilous journey through San Francisquito Canyon. At the Del Valle Ranch (also
referred to as the San Francisquito Ranch), a “Spanish” ranching
family living in an adobe house came to the Jayhawkers’ rescue, using sign
language to communicate with the devastated travellers, giving them oranges,
nursing them back to health, and even killing a steer for them to feast on (pp.
70-71). The author provides a short history of the 1840 Del Valle Spanish grant
(54,000 acres), noting the ranch was the home of Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona
and the upper portion of the grant became Newhall’s Ranch. The Jayhawkers
sometimes held their reunions at the Newhall Ranch. $150.00
1804. ELLENBECKER, John G. Oak Grove Massacre, Oak, Nebraska,
Indian Raids on the Little Blue River in 1864, As Printed in the Marysville
Advocate-Democrat. Marysville, Kansas, n.d. (ca. 1930s?). [4] pp. Folio.
Browned, otherwise fine. Rare (RLIN locates the University of Minnesota copy; OCLC
traces four copies—University of Minnesota, Denver Public Library,
Yale, and Nebraska Historical Society).
First edition. Decker 23:305. Not in Howes, Graff,
etc. Privately printed account of Sioux and Cheyenne depredations between 1860
and 1869, with a chronicle of losses of life and property, including rustling
and stampeding livestock, e.g.: “In the gigantic raid of August 7, 1864,
practically all the stations and ranches were burned from Julesberg to Kiowa
station with the exception of Little Blue station; in all about thirty stations
and five times as many ranches.” $450.00
1805. ELLENBECKER, John G. The Pony Express [wrapper title].
N.p., n.d. 8 pp., photographic illustration. Narrow 12mo, original cream printed
self-wrappers, stapled. Lightly worn and age toned, a few ink notations, overall
very good.
First edition. Includes details on the Pony Express
saddle and mochilla, Pony Express Bible, and biographical information on perhaps
the most famous of the Pony Express riders, fifteen-year-old Bill Cody of later
Wild West fame. $35.00
1806. ELLIMAN, SONS & COMPANY. The Uses of Elliman’s
Embrocation for Horses, Dogs, Birds, Cattle. Slough, England: Elliman,
Sons & Company, 1899. 184 [2] pp., engraved frontispiece, text illustrations
(some full-page), ads. 8vo, original gilt-lettered purple cloth. Binding
faded, spine damaged, lower hinge cracked and endpaper torn—fair copy
only.
“Second edition” (according to title; RLIN, OCLC,
and British Museum Catalogue show no earlier edition). A first-aid manual for
animals, with descriptions of various cattle ailments and accidents, including
choking, cramps, delirium, dislocations, glossitis, warbles, and lightning (no
remedy for the latter, alas, but the author notes that in many cases fire insurance
will cover the loss). Amazingly, many of the maladies described can be cured
or eased by purchasing Elliman’s Embrocation. $35.00
1807. ELLIOT, W. J. The Spurs. [Spur, Texas]: The Texas
Spur, 1939. [12] 274 pp., frontispiece (photographic portrait of author) and
photographic plates printed on clay-coated paper (lime green on rectos, kelly
green on versos), text illustrations. 12mo, original green cloth. A few minor
spots and nicks to binding, small, closed tear to lower free endpaper, very
good to fine in original glassine d.j. (much better condition than usually
found).
First edition. Campbell, My Favorite 101 Books about
the Cattle Industry 32. CBC 1406. Dykes, Collecting Range Life
Literature, p. 15; Western High Spots, p. 102 (“The Texas Ranch
Today”). Herd 757: “Scarce.... A history of this famous ranch
by one connected with it. Privately printed and now quite difficult to come by.” Howes
E100. Reese, Six Score 37: “While this book is rather crudely printed
and written, it gives more of the flavor of the Spur Ranch than any other book.
The author worked for the Spur outfit, and there are many tales of personal experiences
of himself or his comrades.”
The author spends more time discussing the fantastic dinosaurs
that roamed the vast prehistoric landscape that became the Spur Ranch than the
Wanderers-Who-Make-Bad-Camps band of Comanche who dominated the region before
being chased out by Ranald Mackenzie and losing their life sustenance to Anglo
buffalo hunters with their omnipotent 40-70 Sharps Winchesters. The author glosses
history: “It was only a very few years after the slaughter of the buffalo
began until they were practically exterminated. Then the cowmen with the longhorn
cattle took the place of the Indian and the buffalo. So short a time has passed,
with such tremendous changes, and consequences in the evolution of an empire” (p.
5).
In 1883 Alfred M. Britton and S. W. Lomax established Spur
(or Espuela) Ranch east of the Southern High Plains, quickly augmenting their
holdings with 242,000 acres in Dickens, Kent, Garza, and Crosby counties purchased
at $515,540 from the New York & Texas Land Company. The deal was sweetened
by the fact that Britton and Lomax leased at a giveaway rate the blocks of state-owned
land (327,000 additional acres) adjacent to their holdings (Texas had retained
title to alternate sections in the surveyed block for railroads). The savvy entrepreneurs
purchased most of their cattle from small ranchers who, no longer having access
to the open range, were forced to sell to the Espuela.
Aware of keen British speculation in American cattle and range
privileges, Britton scurried to London in 1884 and by 1885 sold the Spur Ranch
to British capitalists (the Espuela Land and Cattle Company), who had twenty-two
long, unprofitable years to regret their decision. In 1906 the Brits unloaded
the ranch for $5 an acre (including livestock, improvements, and equipment) to
E. P. and S. A. Swenson of New York (Spur Syndicate). The new goal was not to
raise cattle, but to found towns. As for this venture, some idea of the success
of the towns founded by the Spur Syndicate may be inferred from statistics on
the town of Spur: “Spur had a population of 1,747 in 1970, 1,690 in 1980,
and 1,300 in 1990. It is the largest town in the county” (Online Handbook
of Texas: Spur, Texas). The present book ably documents the bright side of
life on the Spur Ranch in its hey-day. $450.00
Item 1807
“The State of all States for the Stock Raiser”
1808. ELLIOTT, John F. All about Texas: A Hand Book of Information
for the Home Seeker, the Capitalist, the Prospector, the Tourist, the Health
Hunter, Containing a Description of the State...Its Live Stock Industries...Advice
to Immigrants, How and When to Come, etc. Austin: Hutchings Printing
House, 1888. [4, supplement] [2, railroad information] 47 [3] [20, ads] pp.,
two engraved portraits (Sul Ross and F. B. Chilton), ads with engraved illustrations
(including Texas capitol, Driskill Hotel, Travis County Court House, University
of Texas, small area map of North Texas, etc.), additional ads on inside
of upper and lower wraps. 8vo, original full-color lithographed pictorial
wrappers (by Gast of St. Louis). A few chips to fragile wrappers, lightly
age-toned, upper cover with original light ink stamp of F. B. Chilton & Co.
Real Estate Agents stamp on front wrapper (Chilton was also Secretary of
the Immigration Bureau of Texas, and his portrait appears in the supplement).
Very good to fine. Dudley R. Dobie’s laid-in ms. note: “This
particular issue is superior to earlier ones. This is borne out through ‘Our
Supplement’ devoted to Governor Ross and Secretary Chilton, also the
plates...of Ross and Chilton.”
First edition, later and best issue (“first twenty
thousand”), with additional material inserted at front (first issue was
same year). Herd 755: “Rare.”
This extravagant promotional touts railroads, mining, cotton,
agriculture of all kinds (including tobacco and grapes), educational institutions,
and land, land, and more land. In the section on “Stock Raising” there
is good period information on cattle, as well as horses, mules, jacks, sheep,
goats, hogs, poultry, and bees. “The fertile plains where grow perennial
grasses skirted by living streams of good water, and bordered by storm-sheltering
forests, make this State of ‘magnificent distances’ and cheapest
lands, the State of all States for the stock raiser” (p. 16).
A statistical table claims 7,081,976 head of cattle worth
$51,008,550. The attractive lithographed wrappers show the industries and sacred-cow
icons of Texas, including a cowboy with lasso chasing a herd of steers. The lithography
is the work of the skillful Gast firm in St. Louis, who executed so many of the
Texas General Land Office and railroad company maps of Texas counties at the
end of the 1870s and through the 1880s. Among the many ads for real estate firms
is that of DeCordova & Son of Austin. Another ad of interest is T. P. Robinson,
Hides, Austin, Texas. $1,000.00
Item 1808
1809. ELLIOTT, Richard Smith. Notes Taken in Sixty Years. St.
Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1883. [4] 336 pp., frontispiece portrait of
author (artotype photographic process). 8vo, original green cloth stamped in
gilt and blind. Some shelf wear, hinges cracked (but strong), light marginal
browning to text, overall very good. Ownership ink stamp of Leila C. Elliott
of Coffeyville. Scarce with the portrait.
First edition, first issue (with the artotype portrait
present). Bradford 1634. Eberstadt 114:291: “Chapters on old-time mining,
railroads of long ago, the first locomotive in Illinois, Indians, early California,
etc.”; Eberstadt, Modern Narratives of the Plains and the Rockies 156.
Garrett, The Mexican-American War, p. 210. Graff 1236. Howes E111: “Port[rait]
not in later issues.” Rittenhouse 186: “Elliott spent many years
in Saint Louis and also went up the Missouri. He describes his trip over the
Santa Fe Trail with Doniphan’s column during the Mexican War and his return
east over the Trail in 1847.” Saunders 2876. Tutorow 3642.
Elliott includes a very humorous account of his aborted attempt
to emigrate from Pittsburgh to Texas in 1837 when he encountered the fine and
large steamer Constellation with a Lone Star flag captained by
a German recruiting emigrants (or more likely cannon fodder). Elliott includes
some mention of cattle and herdsmen, such as “The Herder’s Tale,” a
droll poem written in dialect. “Ride round ’em, eh?—an’ head ’em
back? Head back those Texas steers? Stranger, when you was made, was stuff a-runnin’ short
for ears? But then, you’ve had no show to l’arn, jest comin’ out
this fall; You’re like them Yankee chaps that gits round here, and knows
it all!”
Moving on to something more enlightening, the artotype portrait
was made by a process using metal or glass plates coated with dichromated gelatin
to produce a printing surface. After exposure against a negative, the plate was
washed and treated with glycerin. The gelatin surface becomes selectively absorbent,
and greasy ink adheres more easily to the parts of the image containing the least
water; the inked plate is then printed on paper. $150.00
1810. ELLIOTT, Richard Smith. Notes Taken in Sixty Years. St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1883. Another copy, variant binding. 8vo, original mustard cloth stamped in gilt and blind. Light shelf wear, covers soiled, hinges cracked, interior fine. $150.00
1811. ELLIOTT, Richard Smith. Notes Taken in Sixty Years. St.
Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1883. [4] 336 pp. 8vo, original dark purple
cloth stamped in gilt and blind. Light shelf wear, hinges cracked, internally
fine.
First edition, second issue (without the portrait that
appeared in the first issue). $75.00
1812. ELLIS, Amanda M. The Colorado Springs Story. [Colorado
Springs: Dentan Printing Company, 1954]. 48 pp., text illustrations (mostly
photographic). 8vo, original white printed wrappers, stapled (as issued). Fine.
Ownership label and inscription of Edith Blunk.
First edition. Wynar 934. The author’s pamphlets
are packed with fascinating material on Colorado history. Here we find material
on early ranchers, noting that some of the imports from Canada and Europe were
a different breed: “One gay Lothario, so handsome and well bred the ladies
called him ‘Adonis’ recited poetry instead of studying the market
for sheep.... Among the well born ranchmen, ‘fit models of Remington cowboys,’ who
by day urged their ponies to speed around sharp corners, who insisted on afternoon
tea, and who at night correctly clad in evening clothes played escort to willing
ladies, was young Claude Stanhope.... Young English sons, land hungry, came equipped
with the finest of saddles, shot guns, rifles, correct riding clothes, and money
enough to buy a sheep or cattle ranch.”
The author tells of Dirty Woman’s Ranch and cowpunchers
who came to Colorado Springs driving immense herds of cattle and sheep along
Pikes Peak Avenue, crossing Shook’s Run to the east of town, and letting
their animals graze on the buffalo grass. $40.00
1813. ELLIS, Amanda M. Legends and Tales of the Rockies. [Colorado
Springs: Dentan Printing Company, 1954]. 60 pp., text illustrations (one by
Russell, mostly photographic). 8vo, original yellow printed wrappers, stapled
(as issued). Fine.
First edition. Dykes, Western High Spots, p.
8 (“Collecting Modern Western Americana”). Yost & Renner, Russell XVI:99.
Among the legends is one of interest for ranching history: “The Post Hole
Digger” about a young German from the old country who spoke no English
but was hired to dig post holes on government land by the Massachusetts Yankee
entrepreneurs of the Warren Live Stock Company in southern Wyoming and northern
Colorado. With a shovel, an eight-foot post bar, and a famous recipe for cooking
jack rabbits, the energetic German set out digging, pointed toward the setting
sun. He was so efficient that the host of men hired to follow behind him and
fill the lengthy line of holes with posts and string barbed wire never could
catch up with him. Sometimes Mormons in Utah and Wyoming would see the German
posthole digger, but when they tried to talk to him, he would vanish. After a
while, cattlemen even in Utah and Nevada reported seeing a ghostly figure digging
a never-ending, imaginary line of fence posts.
As is sometimes the case with folklore, this whimsical and
seemingly simple tale actually encapsulates a momentous event. The concept of
extended fencing and the invention of barbed wire changed everything in the cattle
country. Open range became well-defined ranches, big outfits gave way to smaller,
more “democratic” ranches, and the great cattle trails disappeared.
$50.00
1814. ELLIS, Amanda M. Pioneers. [Colorado Springs: Dentan
Printing Co., 1955]. 52 pp., plates, portraits, facsimiles. 8vo, original gold
printed wrappers, stapled (as issued). A few light stains to wraps, else fine.
First edition. Guns 673. Wynar 128. Another
of Ellis’s historical pamphlets packed with fascinating meanders into Colorado
history, this one excellent for women’s history. Among the pioneers whose
stories are told is “Mrs. Bowman” (first name lost to history), who
travelled with her infant from Atchinson, Kansas, to Denver in 1864 to join her
husband. At first she encountered friendly Indians who “crowded about us
begging for whiskey and swearing in pure English. They had acquired a Billingsgate
vocabulary of unrivaled opulence.”
Soon, however, her wagon was attacked by a large war party
of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho committing depredations against all the area
ranches. Mrs. Bowman took the reins from the driver, who was paralyzed with fear,
and made him hold her baby while she made hell-for-leather to Thompson’s
Ranch. Before arriving she was met by a guard of sixty soldiers and a worried
husband. “Exhausted, she took her baby and drew the veil that covered his
face, that the father could see his son. ‘Like a piece of rare sculpture,
he lay...dead.’ The attack on the Platte in the spring of ’64 seemed
the climax in a series of tragedies. Almost every ranch from Fort Morgan to Fort
Sedgwick...had been attacked.... Ranches, hay, and stock were burned; men, women,
and children, killed and scalped” (pp. 32-33). $45.00
| <Back to Table of Contents | <Back to Home Page | View next group of items> |