Memoirs, Correspondence And Reminiscences Of William Renick

WILLIAM RENICK

Other works by WILLIAM RENICK

Publication: Union-Herald Book and Job Printing House, 1880, Circleville, Ohio

First edition. 8vo. Small printed card affixed to the front free fly leaf that says "Compliments of the Author." Original reddish brown cloth, beveled edges, brown end-sheets, [6], 115 pp., frontispiece [portrait]. small erratum slip on bottom of p.115. preface, chapter footnotes, appendix.

GRAFF 3462: says "Renick relates that his father, in the winter of 1804-05, fed a lot of cattle and sent them to Baltimore the next Spring, the first fat cattle to cross the Allegheny Mountains. Also he tells of his own purchase of about 1,200 head of cattle in the winter of 1853-54 in Texas, and how they were brought to Illinois in the Spring & Summer of 1854, the first drove of cattle ever brought north from Texas" Streeter Sale 2369 says: "The most important article is "Cattle and The Cattle Trade" written for the 1860 U.S. census. As given here, it includes many footnotes added by Renick. The "memoirs" was written for private circulation among the family and is quite rare--TWS."

Streeter highlights the importance of "Cattle and the Cattle Trade" (pp. 10-26), which originally appeared in the United States Census Report of 1860, and is considerably expanded here with the additional of numerous and lengthy footnotes. At the time of writing, large swaths of the Great Plains were opening to cattle ranching, and the industry was poised for a period of profound expansion until the “Great Die Up” of 1886-1887. Renick comments on the rosy economic outlook at the time:"The wonderful increase of late years, both in the production and consumption of beef cattle in the United States, the one obviously keeping pace with the rapid strides of the other, has developed in part the capabilities of the vast western prairies, providentially provided beforehand, to meet the wants of a great nation, increasing in population and advancing in wealth and power with a rapidity wholly unprecedented in history" (pp. 21-22).

Neatly repaired at the lower spine by a professional conservator, small inked stamp of Wesleyan University to both title page and bottom of page 53, else text is clean and tight. Overall a near fine copy that is both an Ohio and Texas Western cattle trade rarity

Inventory Number: 54545