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Author: Horn, Hosea B
Title: Horn's Overland Guide, from the U.S. Indian Sub-Agency, Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River, to the City of Sacramento, in California
Place Published: New York
Publisher:J. H. Colton
Date Published: 1852
Description:

83, [1], 18pp. plus large folding map. (12mo) 15.4x9.5 cm (6x3¾"), blindstamped brown cloth with gilt title on front cover, in later cloth chemise in green half-leather over matching cloth slipcase with gilt titles and decoration on spine. First Edition.

One of two issues of the first edition of the "best handbook for the central route available at the time" (Howes). This is the issue with the "opinions of the press" on page 5, and the longer pagination of the main text. Hosea Horn was an Iowa lawyer who travelled the routes himself and produced this detailed overland guide, the most popular and best-known of its day. The text consists of a lengthy list of "Notable Places, Objects and Remarks" and follows the trail in a detailed, step-by-step fashion, with mileage charts, distance between places, etc. The map was executed by Colton and shows the entire central route, with all the cut-offs, marked in red. "Especial importance attaches to this work from the fact that it was one of the few guides which actually measured and described much of the route traversed. Horn had personally been over all the 'cut-offs' and he prepared what is possibly the most exact account of the 'Overland Trail' which has come down to us" - Eberstadt. "One of the best of the guides, as it is one of the few where the distances were closely measured" - Streeter.

Light wear; ownership signature on first few pages and E. Mendenhall, Map, Book & Print Seller label on front pastedown; small closed tears along folds of map; very good.