Details
LANGFORD, Nathaniel Pitt (1832-1911). Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870. [St. Paul, Minn.: Privately Printed], 1905.
8o (202 x 140 mm). Half-tone plates and text illustrations. Original blue pictorial cloth, gilt-lettered on upper cover and spine, top edge gilt. Provenance: John Thomas Lee, Madison, Wis. (bookplate, presentation inscription); Sam Weller (pencil note on front free endpaper).
FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY LANGFORD on the flyleaf: "John Thomas Lee Compliments of The Author, Nathaniel P. Langford, St. Paul, Aug. 26, 1911." And with an autograph letter signed to Lee of the same date tipped-in, forwarding the copy of the book. "National Park" Langford, as he was known, was one of the first (after John Colter and other early mountain men or beaver trappers) to describe the geological wonders of the Yellowstone country. He traveled into the area, still occupied by Indians, after David E. Folsom told him and a few other friends of what he had seen with the Folsom-Cook Expedition of 1869 before being driven from the area by hostiles. General Henry D. Washburn organized a nineteen-man company with the aid of Langford, Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane, and Judge Cornelius Hedges. The explorers left Helena, Montana, on 17 August 1870 and made the first detailed examination of the Yellowstone district. All four leaders kept diaries that were eventually published, but the most complete and best-written account was Langford's. Graff 2389.
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FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY LANGFORD on the flyleaf: "John Thomas Lee Compliments of The Author, Nathaniel P. Langford, St. Paul, Aug. 26, 1911." And with an autograph letter signed to Lee of the same date tipped-in, forwarding the copy of the book. "National Park" Langford, as he was known, was one of the first (after John Colter and other early mountain men or beaver trappers) to describe the geological wonders of the Yellowstone country. He traveled into the area, still occupied by Indians, after David E. Folsom told him and a few other friends of what he had seen with the Folsom-Cook Expedition of 1869 before being driven from the area by hostiles. General Henry D. Washburn organized a nineteen-man company with the aid of Langford, Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane, and Judge Cornelius Hedges. The explorers left Helena, Montana, on 17 August 1870 and made the first detailed examination of the Yellowstone district. All four leaders kept diaries that were eventually published, but the most complete and best-written account was Langford's. Graff 2389.