THE PROPERTY OF DESCENDENTS OF WILLIAM S. AND FREDERICK A. STARRING
William Sylvanus Starring (1840-1889) graduated from West Point in 1865. He was appointed to the 18th Infantry and then transferred to the 36th and named Adjutant after re-organization of the army. He remained Adjutant of that regiment, traveling throughout the American West during the height of the later Plains Indian Wars, until he was selected for duty at the Military Academy as Assistant Instructor of Tactics. Transferred sucessively to the artillery and ordnance corps, he became a Captain of Ordnance in 1879. He went on to the Cheyenne, Wyoming Ordnance Dept. 1886 to 1887 and finally was appointed Chief Ordnance Officer, Dept of the Columbia, Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory, from 1887 until his death in 1889. According to the general orders from the Headquarters, Department of the Columbia which announces his death: "In his early service in the West he became intimately associated with the Indians of the plains, especially the Sioux, and with great assiduity and care prepared a valuable dictionary of their language." The Starring family archive contains the author's own annotated copy of this legendary rarity.
Frederick Augustus Starring (1834-1904), his older brother, led an equally distinguished career. In 1852, his uncle Mason Brayman (future Governor of Idaho Territory) secured a position for his nephew with the Illinois Central Railroad doing construction surveys and assisting with the organization of its Land Department. Starring was Secretary of the Land Department of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad in Little Rock when the Civil War broke out. Although he found it difficult at first to obtain a commission, Starring was volunteer aide at the first Bull Run battle, returned to Illinois and was commissioned Major of the 46 Illinois Infantry Regiment. He eventually was selected Colonel of the 1st Chicago Board of Trade Regiment of the 72nd Illinois Infantry and was later made Provost Marshall of the Gulf at New Orleans. Starring was a member of Grant's central Mississippi campaign, the Yazoo Pass Expedition, the Battle of Champion Hills, Big Black River, and the siege and assaults on Vicksburg, after which he received the Vicksburg Medal of Honor. He also received the McPherson Badge. He was made Brigadier General by Brevet in March 1865. After the war, Starring studied law at Harvard University and in Paris, and he traveled extensively throughout the world. He assisted in the organization of the Grand Army of the Republic and was appointed Inspector General in 1869, helping to design the G.A.R. badge and a large portion of the ritual. President Grant appointed Starring as an agent to examine consular and diplomatic affairs in Europe in July 1869. Starring resigned from public office in 1883 and moved to New York to practice law. He died in 1904.
STARRING, William Sylvanus (1840-1889) and J.K. HYER (d. 1882). Lahcotah [wrapper title]. Dictionary of the Sioux Language. Fort Laramie, Dakota [present day Wyoming], December 1866.
Details
STARRING, William Sylvanus (1840-1889) and J.K. HYER (d. 1882). Lahcotah [wrapper title]. Dictionary of the Sioux Language. Fort Laramie, Dakota [present day Wyoming], December 1866.
8o (197 x 138 mm). 16 leaves. Italic type. Original printed wrappers, closed with three contemporary broad brass staples. Provenance: William Sylvanus Starring, the author (signature on title, annotations); by descent to the present owner.
A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY: THE AUTHOR'S COPY OF THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN WYOMING, one of approximately 50 copies only, signed by him on the front wrapper: "W.S. Starring" and copiously annotated throughout in pencil. Starring's notes correct spellings, both of English words and Lakota translations, in an attempt to refine his work. At the top of the first page, as if addressing a future printer for a subsequent edition, Starring has written: "Observe accents placed in where omitted before--Leave out hyphen when erased out as in 'to admire.'"
Snowed in along the Smoky Hill River, during one of the worst winters on record, Starring and Hyer, with the aid of interpreter Charles Guerreu, compiled this extensive vocabulary. The copy at the Wisconsin Historical Society bears a note from James D. Butler, who was given a copy of the book by Starring: "Shut up all winter in a Rocky Mountain fort with many Indian scouts, Lieut. Hyer and I undertook to master their language. Accordingly eight of the most intelligent natives were brought into our quarters early every day. We had Webster unabridged on the table before us and made inquiry about every word in its order. Whenever we found any corresponding aboriginal expression we wrote it down, and before the close of our confinement had reached the end of our Webster" (quoted in Stopka, p. vii). William Starring's archive details his travels during this period and reveals the most likely sequence of the book's path from manuscript to print. His unit in the 36th Infantry was immobilized by the heavy snows from 13 December 1865 to 5 February 1866. Leaving camp along the Smoky Hill River, Starring went to Fort Lyon, Colorado until May 1866, arriving at Fort Laramie on the 1st of June. There he remained until 3 January 1867.
The colophon states that the book was "Compiled with the aid of Charles Guerreu Indian Interpreter, by Lieuts. J.K. Hyer and W.S. Starring, U.S.A. and is as complete as a perfect knowledge of the Lahcotah Language can make it. Fort Laramie, Dakota, December, 1866." It is most probable that Starring and Hyer compiled the manuscript during the long winter of 1865-66, as Starring told James D. Butler, and then brought their manuscript to Fort Laramie in the summer of 1866 and there had it printed on a small army press.
Practically speaking, it was a crucial time for such a text to be issued on the Plains. Hostilities along the Bozeman Trail, over which prospective miners were swarming to Montana, were raging between the Sioux and Cheyenne and the whites traversing their territories. While Starring and Hyer were compiling their dictionary over the winter, many of the Plains Indians perished due to the snows and extreme cold, and from the denial of annuity rations of blankets and food which their aggressions had precipitated. In January 1866, Sioux leaders, led by chiefs Spotted Tail of the Brulé and Red Cloud of the Oglala, learned that after a year they again were welcomed at Fort Laramie and were able to negotiate a peace. This peace was fragile, however, and when Col. Henry B. Carrington began the immense offensive against the Sioux in the fall and early winter of 1866, this chapter in the Plains Indian wars reached its peak. In the context of these events, the availability of Hyer and Starring's dictionary, no matter how small the edition, would prove invaluable.
Starring's own copy shows the desire (and perhaps the pressure) to refine it and make it as accurate as possible. To the more than 1,000 words and numbers translated in the text, Starring's manuscript notes add 20: boy, to broil, buffalo robe, butter, cayote, coal, to play a game at cards, coffee, to come, to fry, hard bread, himself, man (Indian), man (white), paper money, oil, paper, to push, raisin and snake. More fully does Starring correct errors in the text, at times of great significance as in the case of "manner" having been mistaken for "manure" or "stave" for "starve." In all, 217 entries have been modified, and at the end are written various conjugations for the verb "to want."
EXCEEDINGLY RARE: J.C. Pilling, who did not locate a copy in time to include it in his Proof-Sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians (1885), pasted a note to his copy now in the Ayer Collection: "Present from Gen. Starring... Big find. 50 copies only Starring thinks." The census in Stopka records one copy that is in fact a later facsimile. In total there are 9 located copies: Huntington (imperfect, lacks pp. 1-4), Yale (2 variant settings of type), Newberry Library (Ayer and Graff copies, 2 variant settings of type), Northwestern University, Harvard, Dartmouth, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. According to American Book Prices Current, the only copy to appear at auction in at least 30 years is the Siebert copy, 28 October 1999, lot 1059. Not in Streeter. AII (Wyoming) 1; Ayer Indian Linguistics Dakota 85; Coe p. 88; Graff 2037; McMurtrie Early Printing in Wyoming, pp. 44-6; Stopka 1866.1; Wyoming Imprints 1.
8
A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY: THE AUTHOR'S COPY OF THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN WYOMING, one of approximately 50 copies only, signed by him on the front wrapper: "W.S. Starring" and copiously annotated throughout in pencil. Starring's notes correct spellings, both of English words and Lakota translations, in an attempt to refine his work. At the top of the first page, as if addressing a future printer for a subsequent edition, Starring has written: "Observe accents placed in where omitted before--Leave out hyphen when erased out as in 'to admire.'"
Snowed in along the Smoky Hill River, during one of the worst winters on record, Starring and Hyer, with the aid of interpreter Charles Guerreu, compiled this extensive vocabulary. The copy at the Wisconsin Historical Society bears a note from James D. Butler, who was given a copy of the book by Starring: "Shut up all winter in a Rocky Mountain fort with many Indian scouts, Lieut. Hyer and I undertook to master their language. Accordingly eight of the most intelligent natives were brought into our quarters early every day. We had Webster unabridged on the table before us and made inquiry about every word in its order. Whenever we found any corresponding aboriginal expression we wrote it down, and before the close of our confinement had reached the end of our Webster" (quoted in Stopka, p. vii). William Starring's archive details his travels during this period and reveals the most likely sequence of the book's path from manuscript to print. His unit in the 36th Infantry was immobilized by the heavy snows from 13 December 1865 to 5 February 1866. Leaving camp along the Smoky Hill River, Starring went to Fort Lyon, Colorado until May 1866, arriving at Fort Laramie on the 1st of June. There he remained until 3 January 1867.
The colophon states that the book was "Compiled with the aid of Charles Guerreu Indian Interpreter, by Lieuts. J.K. Hyer and W.S. Starring, U.S.A. and is as complete as a perfect knowledge of the Lahcotah Language can make it. Fort Laramie, Dakota, December, 1866." It is most probable that Starring and Hyer compiled the manuscript during the long winter of 1865-66, as Starring told James D. Butler, and then brought their manuscript to Fort Laramie in the summer of 1866 and there had it printed on a small army press.
Practically speaking, it was a crucial time for such a text to be issued on the Plains. Hostilities along the Bozeman Trail, over which prospective miners were swarming to Montana, were raging between the Sioux and Cheyenne and the whites traversing their territories. While Starring and Hyer were compiling their dictionary over the winter, many of the Plains Indians perished due to the snows and extreme cold, and from the denial of annuity rations of blankets and food which their aggressions had precipitated. In January 1866, Sioux leaders, led by chiefs Spotted Tail of the Brulé and Red Cloud of the Oglala, learned that after a year they again were welcomed at Fort Laramie and were able to negotiate a peace. This peace was fragile, however, and when Col. Henry B. Carrington began the immense offensive against the Sioux in the fall and early winter of 1866, this chapter in the Plains Indian wars reached its peak. In the context of these events, the availability of Hyer and Starring's dictionary, no matter how small the edition, would prove invaluable.
Starring's own copy shows the desire (and perhaps the pressure) to refine it and make it as accurate as possible. To the more than 1,000 words and numbers translated in the text, Starring's manuscript notes add 20: boy, to broil, buffalo robe, butter, cayote, coal, to play a game at cards, coffee, to come, to fry, hard bread, himself, man (Indian), man (white), paper money, oil, paper, to push, raisin and snake. More fully does Starring correct errors in the text, at times of great significance as in the case of "manner" having been mistaken for "manure" or "stave" for "starve." In all, 217 entries have been modified, and at the end are written various conjugations for the verb "to want."
EXCEEDINGLY RARE: J.C. Pilling, who did not locate a copy in time to include it in his Proof-Sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians (1885), pasted a note to his copy now in the Ayer Collection: "Present from Gen. Starring... Big find. 50 copies only Starring thinks." The census in Stopka records one copy that is in fact a later facsimile. In total there are 9 located copies: Huntington (imperfect, lacks pp. 1-4), Yale (2 variant settings of type), Newberry Library (Ayer and Graff copies, 2 variant settings of type), Northwestern University, Harvard, Dartmouth, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. According to American Book Prices Current, the only copy to appear at auction in at least 30 years is the Siebert copy, 28 October 1999, lot 1059. Not in Streeter. AII (Wyoming) 1; Ayer Indian Linguistics Dakota 85; Coe p. 88; Graff 2037; McMurtrie Early Printing in Wyoming, pp. 44-6; Stopka 1866.1; Wyoming Imprints 1.
Sale room notice
The envelope pictured on page 177 accompanies lot 295, not lot 294.