Adventures Of The First Settlers On The Oregon Or Columbia River: Being A Narrative Of The Expedition Fitted Out By John Jacob Astor, To Establish The "Pacific Fur Company," With An Account Of Some Indian Tribes On The Coast Of The Pacific

ALEXANDER ROSS

Publication: Smith, Elder and Co, 1849, London

First edition. 8vo. Half-leather and marbled paper over boards, xv, [1], 352 pp., preface, folding map. A book of exceptional importance to the history of Astoria and the early struggle between the United States and England for control of the Oregon Country. Ross was an officer of the Astoria company, he arrived aboard the ill-fated "Tonquin." He was sent up the Columbia on a trading expedition where he became established at Ft. Okanagan. When the Northwest Company took over Ross stayed on. Ross spent 15 years trading on the Columbia, and later, at Ft. Nez Perce, trading throughout the Snake River country. An excellent narrative, the author was a keen observer and a careful recorder of all he experienced. Ross also includes the important overland accounts of Robert Stuart and Wilson Price Hunt. Elliott Coues called this work one of the three "synoptical gospels": of the Astoria enterprise. This work also includes a section devoted to Chinook vocabulary and jargon, and a "Table of Weather at the Mouth of the Columbia River." An exceptionally clean, tight copy with the folding map in fine condition. Minor ex-library with only a small stamp on the tile page, re-bound in quarter leather and marbled boards, with titles in gold gilt and raised bands on the spine, else a solid very good, clean, tight copy of an important book.

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