Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-’44...

Paved the way for the adventurers and settlers during the Gold Rush

693pp. 4 maps (of 5), 2 folding, and 22 lithographed plates (including 13 views). Large Preuss map not present, otherwise collated complete. Handsomely rebound in three-quarter brown leather with marbled paper boards, with the original black spine label pasted down. Foxing throughout, occasionally heavy.

First edition, best issue. Printed for the Senate as Executive Document 174, 28th Congress. This Senate issue includes the astronomical and meteorological observations that were omitted from the House issue and subsequent editions. Arguably one of the most important single pieces of Western Americana. Co-authored by his wife, Jessie, Frémont's account of his first and second expeditions were the most popular and influential of their kind during the 19th century. Frémont, by providing the first accurate geographical information on the routes through the Rocky Mountains to California, stirred up a great deal of enthusiasm for American expansionism, and inadvertently paved the way for the great overland influx of adventurers and settlers during the Gold Rush. [Cowan: p. 223; Graff: 1436; Howes I: F-370; Howes II: F-372; Sabin: 25845; Wagner-Camp: 115-1; Wheat, Maps of the California Gold Region: 21; Wheat, Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West: II-497; Zamorano Eighty: 39].