West Wind: The Life Story Of Joseph Reddeford Walker, Knight Of The Golden Horseshoe

DOUGLAS WATSON

Publication: Privately printed for his friends by Percy H Booth, Johnck & Seeger, Printers, 1934, Los Angeles

First edition. One of 100 signed deluxe copies in full calf, rather than half-morocco over boards. Quarto. In full brown publisher’s calf, gilt lettering on spine, border rules embossed in blind.[10], 109, [3] pp. Title in red & black. Photogravure frontisp., 4 plates by Frederick Remington, illustrated vignettes throughout by Lawrence A. Patterson, illustrated tailpiece, 1 large folding map. Signed by Percy H. Booth on 3rd flyleaf.

A biographical study of Walker's career as a trapper, scout, and explorer in the American West. Includes information on his early life in Missouri and the Southwest, his service with Benjamin Bonneville in the Rocky Mountains as a guide on his fur trading expeditions into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, his 1833-1834 expeditions across the Sierra Nevada, his role in opening routes that later became part of the California Trail, his early exploration of regions associated with the Yosemite Valley, as well as his later expeditions, trading ventures, and involvement in the settlement of California. Walker fought at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in the culmination of the Creek War, trapped out of Fort Osage, Missouri Territory; and laid out a route for the Santa Fe Trail sponsored by the U.S. Government in 1825, He would later assist John Fremont, and continued guiding miners into the Colorado Territory and Prescott, Arizona Territory through the Civil War.

Minor rubbing and edgewear to spine. Very good.