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Author: Swasey, William F.
Title: The Early Days and Men of California
Place Published: Oakland
Publisher:Pacific Press
Date Published: 1891
Description:

x, 9-406 pp. Illustrated with 4 plates including a wood-engraved frontispiece of San Francisco in 1846-7 & halftone portrait of the author. 8¾x5¾", original gilt-decorated light blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. First Edition.

"Captain Swasey arrived in California in 1845 and was in the employ of both Captain Sutter at Sutter's Fort and American Consul Thomas O. Larkin at Monterey. He had first hand information on all the early happenings and knew personally nearly all of the important pioneers. He was a member of Fremont's Battalion on his march south into Los Angeles. Much of the book is taken up with biographical sketches of important pioneers. The book has always been considered an authority" - Zamorano. Cowan notes that Swasey "wrote easily, and his work forms a reliable picture of the men and events of the early days, more especially San Francisco." Kurutz notes the work as especially valuable for information about California before the gold discovery, and calls it "more of a history than a memoir." Cowan p.627; Graff 4047; Howes S1167; Kurutz 615; Streeter Sale 3012; Zamorano Eighty #72. With ownership signature of James B. Stetson of Holbrook, Merrill & Stetson, who would letter become the president of the California Street Cable Railroad.

Touches of wear to cloth, light creasing and bumping to corners; front hinge cracked, textblock faintly toned; very good.