Lasky, Jane EBiblio.com
Letter from Col. Benton to the People of Missouri. Central National Highway from the Mississippi River to the Pacific. Caption Title
1853rif. BK0172Washington D.C. 1853. 24 pp. measuring 6 ½ x 10 inches. Stitched and untrimmed. Good with considerable wear and chipping at the edges some soiling and early pencil notations. Thomas Hart Benton's argument for a central transcontinental route issued as Congress was moving toward the government surveys that would dominate the Pacific railroad question during the next several years. Benton had been promoting a government-backed "central national highway" since 1849 running west from Missouri toward California. Writing to his former Missouri constituents on March 4 1853 Benton argues that the accumulated western explorations had already demonstrated the practicality of a central route. He gives particular attention to the country approaching the Rocky Mountains and to the search for a usable pass near the headwaters of the Arkansas and Rio Grande drawing heavily on the western travels of his son-in-law John C. Frémont. The final eight pages form an appendix bringing together evidence for the route. They include Frémont's 1850 letter to the Philadelphia Railroad Convention and more notably a statement made to Benton by the veteran trader and guide Antoine Leroux. Leroux recounts his early years in the West his association with the fur-trading expeditions of Ashley and Henry and his long residence at Taos. Graff describes this as the probable first printing of Leroux's statement. A useful piece of western railroad literature with substantial Frémont and New Mexico content published on the eve of the federal Pacific railroad surveys. Howes B368; Graff 270; Wagner-Camp 221; Sabin 4186. . unknown books
Auger Down Books · Stati Uniti200,00 USD≈ 178,68 €
