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INMAN, Henry, and William F. CODY. THE GREAT SALT LAKE TRAIL. By Colonel Henry Inman, Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army; Author of "The Old Santa Fé Trail," Etc. And Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," Late Chief of Scouts. New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1898.

23 cm. (= 9 inches tall). [1 (title)] leaf; v-xiii, 529, [2 (ads)] pages + the 8 plates and folding map. Index, pp. 525-9. Evidently lacking a half-title leaf; all other pages and plates present. Original gilt-lettered cloth decorated in green, black and orange (designated by Howes as Binding 2). New pastedowns apparently supplied, expertly inserted. Medium wear or rubbing to extremities; a trifle shaken but fairly solid.

$90

 

FIRST EDITION. Flake 4254; Howes I55; Graff 2117 (with this green pictorial cloth); Adams, Six Guns and Saddle Leather, 1114; Eberstadt Catalog 107:204 (1937, $9.50), saying that "Col. Cody's quota has the merit of being drawn mainly from his own experience. To the trials of the Mormons during their march and their pioneering adventures Col. Inman devotes some interesting pages. The Salt Lake Trail was also the route followed by the expeditions of Fremont, Stansbury and Lander, and by the Pony Express, with its lumbering colleague, the overland stage."

 

A GREAT and rollicking read. Be sure to spend an evening with young Billy Cody as he rides the Pony Express! The Mormons, Chapter VI; Mountain Meadows Massacre, Chapter VII. This interesting book is further distinguished by several fine quality, full-page lithograph plates from drawings by F. Colburn Clarke, including this one depicting "A Mormon Emigrant Train" . . .

In the great valley of a vast inland sea, the existence of which was unknown to the world seventy-five years ago, whose surroundings were a desert in the most rigid definition of the term, a great commonwealth has been established unparalleled in the history of its origin by that of any other of the civilized countries of the world.

Out of the most desolate of our vast arid interior areas, in less than half a century has been evolved not only a magnificent garden spot, but a great city with all the adjuncts of our most modern civilization. Rich in its architecture, progressive in its art, with a literature that is marvellous when the conditions from which it has sprung are seriously considered, the Mormon community meets all the demands of our ever advancing civilization.

Neither the love of gold, nor the cupidity of conquest, those characteristics which have subordinated other portions of the New World to the restless ambition of man, were the causes that have revolutionized both the physical character and the social conditions of the now wealthy and prosperous state of Utah. As Bancroft very forcibly states: "Utah was settled upon an entirely new idea of God's revelation to the world. Old faiths have been worked over and over; colonies have been built upon those tenets, but never before have any results comparable to those which characterize that of the Mormon faith been attained, in founding a community, based as it is upon an entirely new religion." [pp. 110-11]

 

 

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