WESTERN ART, LIT AND HISTORY

"Transition," a bronze sculpture by Robert MacFie Scriver, portraying generations of Blackfeet.

It was originally meant to be an heroic-sized (life-size plus one-fifth) monument in Browning.

The best of Bob Scriver’s work is finally coming online in a way we would never have anticipated. He hated computers in general, picked a BIG fight with me when I wanted to put his autobiography (the one he was writing himself on legal pads) on a little all-in-one early Macintosh I was using in Heart Butte. He never would have imagined the Internet. I’m suspecting that this casting (above) was made in the Sixties in our own Bighorn Foundry that we built in the backyard and that probably either Carl Cree Medicine or I patined it.

The early auctions began, rather transparently, as ways to clear out the warehoused art stock of certain persons under the guise of helping the CMR Museum or Indians or some other cause. When they came around to ask Bob to donate a piece of art, he was outraged. (“I’m broke already!!”) But one was frozen out of the buyer “social classes” if one didn’t, because the auction was also an important bonding event for collectors and their supplicants. So he invented the Scriver Buffalo Skull Award, which didn’t cost much to cast and wasn’t going to be affected by the general state of art sales.

Now, of course, everything has changed, but Bob was right to be wary of auctions, because now there are many auctions, the generation that was betting on which artist was going to be the next Charlie Russell is ancient or dead, and there is a Charlie Russell wannabe under every bush, painting away as fast as they can. Aside from that, works go through auctions back east where people know nothing but abstract expressionism or conceptual art and no one knows anything about Charlie -- they have a vague trace memory of Frederic Remington.

In some ways, bronze sculptures have become as much victims of technology as books have been undercut by electronics. Ceramic shell casting is so cheap and easy, with results that are so indistinguishable from fine lost wax casting (except by experts), that everyone casts everything, slaps a store-bought slick-as-plastic patina on it (maybe in COLORS !!), and sells it for trinket prices. Worse, they aren’t very particular what they make molds off of -- copyright or not -- and they aren’t particularly good at making molds.

It gets worse: with laser technology, you can stand a horse in front of a machine and have a computer-recorded exact replica of the horse without the intervention of human judgment at all. Is this art? Is an upside-down urinal art? It’s up to the buyer.

Personally, I think it is worse to have a monument-quality sculpture cast by the artist by the same lost-wax method that Rodin used, go at auction for $800. And worse than that, I resent the work being carelessly described by some racist shallow catalogue maker as a “buck, squaw and papoose.” These are portraits. Chewing Black Bone, the man sitting down, was a dignified ceremonialist, said by some to be the last warrior to have taken a scalp. He was blind, probably from trachoma. In summer he lived in his lodge on the Mad Plume ranch, mending his own moccasins and remembering the old days. He was a friend and informant of James Willard Schultz, who called him “Ahku Pitsu.” I only met him once, early in the Sixties.

Mae Williamson, the woman in the middle, was a dignified and sophisticated woman who was married to a white lawyer. (Later she had other husbands, all Blackfeet.) The dress she is wearing, embellished with the eyeteeth of elk (count’em and see how many elk it took), is worth thousands of dollars. The boy is “Tomorrow.” We’ve lost the name of the boy who posed. Maybe he’ll see this, recognize himself, and tell us how he turned out. He’d be a grandfather by now, fifty years older. None of this is romantic foofoo stuff invented by a Hollywood-hypnotized story spinner. These are just facts.

I complain a good deal about the Industrial Cowboy Art Cartel, who try to lock up the value of their own acquisitions by whatever means they can. Wheelin’ and dealin’, we say. In these new phenomena of slice ‘n dice, bring-’em-faster auctions the buyers are often not present (they buy via the internet), no informed persons explain what the context of the pieces are, and everyone is monitoring a ticker-tape website that shows what the artist’s work sold for last time. They are incredibly destructive to the reputation and value of Western American art.

But at least it is not the racist divide that is presently between those who love Western art, Western literature, and Western history because they are essentially a conquerer’s account of the empire of America with a nod to the valor and glamour of the “worthy opponents” -- as opposed to the flipside: real people’s history of previously invisible kinds. (Example: Mian Situ who suddenly makes real the Chinese in the West.) This divide is in all three contexts and it is decimating the organizations devoted to the fields, especially those that include with the amateur aficionadoes some serious academics who have been alert to the re-framing of history by people like Howard Zinn. Young people are now quite different in outlook and opposed to exploitation. It may be that the buckskinners and cavalry re-enactors have smudges of fascistic elitism and triumphalism. The idea makes them so defensive that no one wants to go near the topic.

Right-wingers. God love ‘em. Bob Scriver was among ‘em. Not that the forces of Red Power didn’t do their best to change him from an innocent to an entrenched opponent. This man grew up thinking he WAS Indian and got pushed out of the category by Indian people who hated the FBI -- who did their best to reinforce hate, even though the FBI was organized in the first place to oppose the many murders that came out of the great early oil strikes in Kansas. Wounded Knee was Wounded Pride. So the foxes sit quietly in front of the hen house with their tails curled around their well-polished wingtips while the weasels come and go.

I’m not meaning to accuse the amateur aficionadoes, who are off creating sonnets that ask “Why Gone Those Times?” I’m not ignoring the young rascals who say, “Good riddance.” It’s the commodifiers I’m after. In the meantime, sales everywhere are really miserable.

SEVENTH CAVALRY: A Real Story

The little teaser below is from www.ropeandwire.com which is a website community for folks who love the old-fashioned West.  Duncklee once cowboyed up in this country where I am.  One of the by-blows in his little satirical tale is a snotty suggestion by one character that next someone would write a story about two gay cavalrymen at Custer’s Last Stand.  I’m gonna take it on.

Duncklee’s tease:

THE REAL CONVENTION

John Duncklee

jpduncklee@earthlink.net

www.johndunckley.com

The panel sessions during the annual convention of the auspicious Horseshit and Gunsmoke Writers of the West had been going full blast all morning and half the afternoon. It was the third day of the week-long meeting at the Cowpie Palace Hotel in Denver. Not all the writers, editors and agents attended the panel sessions. There was always at least one table in the lounge occupied by those more interested in networking, ( a P.C. Word for ass-kissing), than listening to such topics as “Women of the West Smell Like Horseshit Too”, “Horseshit and Gunsmoke Markets in Belize”, or “What Does a Horseshit Editor Look For?”.

Read Full Story>>

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ANOTHER REAL INCIDENT

The soldier was only a kid.  It wasn’t an unknown phenomenon since overburdened families could use the enlistment fee.  Or maybe he was a runaway -- just a drifter.    He didn’t seem to know much.  Knife skills.  Knots.  But not human relations.  He was good with horses but not other men.  Maybe grew up in country not yet that settled so men worked alone, couldn’t afford to take a kid to town with them.  He kinda hung around the edges of the company.  The old cavalryman didn’t pry.  He was a big man with a thick neck and he, too, kept to himself.  Just liked it that way.   

So they had a tendency to hunker together out at the edge of the firelight for no particular reason.  It just happened that way.  As a cavalry old timer, the big man knew the importance of awareness, not just of the enemy but also of supposed allies who could be far more dangerous since they had access and knowledge.  In fact, every time he looked at Custer his guts clenched.  The unreal arrogance and conceit of a nearly bald man who grew out his side hair to shoulder-length and then kept his hat on to maintain the illusion was dangerous.  Irritability in a leader was dangerous enough, but once this old-timer soldier saw Custer’s wife, he knew the two of them were entwined in a folie a deux of fantasy and ambition.

He didn’t have much use for women, not even the worn and essentially sympathetic whores near any army barracks.  His preference was more secret, more condemned: the male Indian accommodators who hung around the fort for more than whisky.  They were not likely to talk much to anybody about anything, but he did pick up a few tidbits now and then.  They didn’t always realize how well he spoke their language.  He could see an apocalypse coming.

He didn’t much care.  The frontier was ending but everything ends.  He felt very tired.  Maybe it would have been different if he’d had children, but his kind didn’t marry nor did he suspect any accidental plantings outside the garden.  It was hard to think what he could do outside the company of men.  Not that he had any taste for ordinary men with their need to acquire both material goods and imagined status.

The kid felt good with the old soldier near him.  The man was generous in teaching little techniques and relaying small stories that might come in useful later.  Sometimes they laughed together.  At night the man was careful to roll out his bedroll at some distance, which hurt the boy’s feelings.  Once he dragged his soogan over to the man’s massive prone bulk, but the man -- without a word -- gathered up his bedding and moved to the other side of the camp.  A few tears that time, but the boy didn’t think anyone saw them.  He hoped not.  He knew it was a major mistake to show weakness, which is why the big man interested him so much.  No one doubted his skill or potency, in battle or out.

Rumors about the Indians began to fly.  The man started to advise the boy to transfer out of Custer’s command, maybe to the supply train.  The boy was hurt, thinking that this was because the big man thought he was unfit for combat, so he was defiant and said he would not change anything.  Inside, the big man sorrowed.  He had an idea what might be coming and he loved the boy, wanted him to escape.

Though he was afraid of what trouble night-walking might get him into, in daylight he liked being near the boy, riding beside him when they were on the move, and sitting near him when they took their breaks.  They shared tobacco, each in his own pipe.  The boy was trying to grow a mustache, but his eyelashes were both longer and thicker than the hair on his upper lip.  Sunlight caught in both, making them into bright feathers.  No matter how dusty the riding, the boy’s clear eyes and white teeth flashed bright.  Daily the bone around his eyes and along his jaw grew thicker, more defined.  He tipped his hat at a jaunty angle, though that was discouraged by the officers who despised individuality.  Except for Custer’s flauntings, which might have been the source of their displeasure.  

Nevertheless, it was late in June.  If they got off the trail. the green grass -- full of flowers -- was up to the bellies of the horses, and the streams still had cold running water.  Meadowlarks called and hawks circled the sky.  It was easy in all that bliss to forget what their job really was.

When they approached the Greasy Grass, the veteran unbuttoned his jacket, letting it blow around him to make a deceptive target from a distance.  He’d heard Indians had picked up some Sharps rifles and were practicing.  “Keep a peeled eye,” he advised the kid.  “Stick close to me.”  He sat high in his saddle, full of tension,  trying to remember more scraps of conversation with Indians.  This spring’s ceremonies had been intense and well-attended.  

When the column rode over a bluff and down a coulee towards the river, a steep descent that threw some horses, the boy thought that’s what his older friend meant, so he was braced and kept his horse under him.  Then he smelled the campfires.

The rest was much confused, though the boy did his best until an arrow pierced him and the bright blood sprang out.  He fell down to the grass now greasy with his own slipping-away.  Then assailants were close around, using hand weapons instead of arrows, and the older man dismounted, letting his horse go.  He stood beside the boy’s body for just a moment before he saw a shadow from the corner of his eye and threw himself down over the youngster, even knowing he was nearly gone.  The pressure made the boy sigh.  Then the shadow, wielding a stone battle hammer, slammed it into the big man’s head.

In the desperate second of death, which he did not regret, he was aware that at last he was holding the warm boy beneath him in his arms, so familiar, though he had never touched him.  He could not tell whether the boy knew.  

Much later when the Indian women came through the tangle of bodies -- stripping and looting, finishing off and mutilating, ululating and singing -- they came to the two men, one older on the top of the younger.  They stood looking.  One said,  “Father protected son.”  They moved on without touching the men.  

THE GEAR JAMMERS CONVENTION

It really wasn’t fair. The worst weather so far this fall -- and we’ve had spates of pretty uncomfortable weather (worse that than if you’re trying to harvest)-- hit just as the Glacier National Park Gear Jammers convention celebrated the Centennial anniversary of the Park itself in East Glacier. Ray Djuff was there -- usually it snows when Ray gets to the Park -- once so badly that he woke up to discover he was the only one left in his motel. Even the owners had gone, leaving him a note and a shovel.

This time Ray was an organizer and had asked me to speak about Bob Scriver, specifically in terms of the Scriver Museum of Montana Wildlife, which had been on the Park tours for the last fifty years. Since I couldn’t remember what time I was supposed to be scheduled, I went up in near-dark to get there by nine AM. I was a little daunted to drive through the underpass and confront the Big Hotel with a giant white marquee tent -- the kind used for weddings in the Hamptons -- pitched in the middle of the putting green out front of the grand old log hulk of the lodge. The famous English border garden along the front path was only a little raggedy but the footing was uncertainly slick.

Leaving everything (including the bronze of “Lone Cowboy” I had brought for show and tell) in the pickup, I went up to the lobby, seething with masses of middle-aged to outright elderly former Gear-Jammers and their wives. The majority of attendees were being loaded into the famous Thirties open tour buses, now proudly rebuilt and restored to their bright red glory, to cross Logan Pass in the fog. In a way they wouldn’t even notice because their heads and talk were so full of stories from the past: embarrassments, near-deaths, pickles and triumphs. As one man said, “That summer job as a Gear Jammer opened up the world for me. I was never the same again.” He became a geologist. (Also a Unitarian.)

These men (no women) were carefully chosen for good judgment, mechanical savvy, person skills, and (I suspect) good looks. Most of them seemed to have hung on to those qualities. The oldest Gear Jammer was in his nineties. Some wives had been maids at the complex of hotels, or waitresses (there were also waiters) who were given preference if they had musical or theatrical skills. The performances at Many Glacier were seedbeds for many careers, great and small but always proud.

The original pattern for this complex of hotels was European with hiking paths connecting lodges. The idea was for the Great Northern to be the feeder for the destination. Since the headquarters of the railroad was in Minneapolis, at first many of the employees were healthy Scandinavian descendants of Minneapolis railroad employees, but the advertising leaned heavily on the mythology of the American Indian, specifically Blackfeet, among whom the conviction had taken deep root that Two Guns Whitecalf was the model for the head of the Buffalo Nickel. Ray has been investigating this claim along with his other treks through archives and stacks. For a while Blackfeet in splendid buckskin parade suits and full Sioux headdress met all the trains and presenting evening programs.

But ordinary rez folks were not welcome, including Bob Scriver and I. The idea was that this was an elegant resort and people should be dressed up, which we weren’t. Then in the days of Red Empowerment it occurred to the tribe that employment in the Park was a no-brainer and they forced the issue, so almost every clerk and maid was Indian. Now the tide is running towards Europe again. Brownie’s, which admittedly is not the Big Hotel but houses many kids for the summer in the Youth Hostel upstairs, employs SIX Lithuanian women (young and beautiful, oh yes) who return year after year. In the winter they go to ski resorts. They are, quite simply, resort professionals. Now once again after supper the Blackfeet come to the lodge to give talks in front of the giant fireplaces, but they are the likes of Jack Gladstone, CD’s available, professional Blackfeet troubadour.

Not many people attended my talk, maybe twenty, but they held their focus while slowly freezing and didn’t leave quickly. My own breath was coming in a plume. They did remember and they had stories to tell, though many were retired and it was clear that the world had passed some of them by -- sometimes in ways they were not aware of, like all the computer access. “Where can I get this?” “Go to the computer.” “Oh, I never touch those things.” “Get a twelve-year-old to help you.” I thought twelve was not too embarrassingly young. Actually most five-year-olds are fairly competent now.

The Great National Park systems were brilliant in several ways. First of all, they really were cathedrals to a lot of people, though I get sick of hearing them raved about just because they are steep mountains and you can see a long way. Second, for the people who work there in summer -- often returning year after year -- they are a reservoir of friendship, experience, and testing that is quite comparable and maybe superior to a classroom. Third, for the local people who actually interact with these folks, they are access to the “outside.” When you live in “God’s Country,” as we arrogantly claim, it’s easy to ignore the rest of the world.

But I could NOT get my audience to understand who Indians are, as various and unaccountable as any other group. I could not get them to see writing as anything but a clever bourgeois pursuit rather like needlepoint, best devoted to friendly subjects. I didn’t even try to get them to see (and did not try) that the “glaciers” are nearly gone and that it is near the end of whatever the warming period of the planet is called. But I think that the man to whom plate tectonics came as a thunderclap in the news while he was driving a red bus full of Minneapolis matrons over Logan Pass -- that man understands without me having to tell him. I said, “Geology is nearly theology,” and he nodded.

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY: A Reflection

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah (February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984)

Mariette Hartley 21 June 1940, Weston, Connecticut, USA

Randolph Scott (January 23, 1898 – March 2, 1987)

Joel Albert McCrea, (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990)

When “Ride the High Country” was released in 1962, I was the same age as Mariette Hartley and Bob Scriver was just slightly younger (b. 1914) than Joel McCrea. If I’d been in this movie, I never would have given a second glance to the younger men -- I’d have gone like a bee to Joel McCrea. Bob and I met him at the Cowboy Hall of Fame when he received an award there and, believe me, it would have been the right impulse in spite of his long and faithful marriage to Frances.


I might have deserted McCrea for Randolph Scott. When Randolph Scott was born, the Great Northern Railroad had barely crossed the High-Line of Montana, and Bob’s dad, Thaddeus, was still not in Browning. (He came in 1903.) Peckinpah was born when Bob Scriver was 11. Both men are, let’s say, “storied.” Peckinpah’s father was very much like Joel McCrea, or at least his character in this movie.

I end up doing a lot of this time-line pondering because it explains so much about the American West where things happened just yesterday, and since then have been revised and revised -- sometimes by movies and books and sometimes by the people actually living in memory. It’s as though the terrain were eroded by storms and then again by the dust and sun. It’s revision by theory that does the most damage. I particularly despise what I call “pantywaist stuff” like what is on this DVD as voice-over about “Ride the High Country.” Four pretentious “experts” on Peckinpah peddle “ooohs” and “aaahs” about minutia without any reality-based notion of what they’re talking about.

Talk about white boys from the suburbs up north. They think the marriage in a brothel is “Fellini-esque” but to me it looked like Saturday night in a Cut Bank bar in 1962 when the oil boom was still on. I only went there once, but if I’d gone back, I’d have carried a knife in my moccasin top. The woman I went with thought it was great fun. Drunken judges are not so unusual around there either.

These “experts” who had each published a book on Peckinpah pointed out how “beautiful” and “sensitive” it was to show Mariette Hartley crossing the camp barefoot and flinching from the sharp things on the ground. “It shows that she can have pain,” cooed one. I would have thought it meant she didn’t have bedroom slippers with her, though she packed a nightgown. When camping in the high mountains, I wear socks and longjohns because cold is more of a problem then sharp rocks. Then there was the early “revolutionary” shot of her changing her clothes, thus revealing she was wearing no bra though we only see her back.

Western movies have always had the same problem as Western history, which is to say that they are a sort of “people’s subject” or were when everyone’s grandpa had been there. Many a local enjoys pointing out errors in paraphernalias and practices. In time a coulee developed between those who were operating on their own experience and those who were trained academic historians, conforming to frontier theory, documents and the like. Then along came a revolution in the way we do history: “the people’s history,” and everything began to be sliding shale underfoot. An avalanche from the feminists. Big boulders rolling down from the Chinese building a railroad up above. And where did those Indians go to? Lurking over the ridge, no doubt, cooking up some scheme for attacking white men. Try to ignore them.

Western movies and books are now seen as childs’ play, naive stuff not worth bothering with unless there were terrible blood baths involved or the characters were left over from NYPD Blue and talked like that and had sex like that. There have always been enthusiasts, re-enactors re-creating a landscape in the same way that the German Indian enthusiasts make careful copies of idealized artifacts and villages that never existed. This is where you want to locate those Peckinpah experts who will tell you on the one hand that the Coarse Gold mining camp is absolutely authentic -- “look at that detail! No one else got it so authentic!” -- and in the next breath point out that the snow is soapsuds and the tent canvas was left over from the sails of a sea-going movie made just previously.

But now the signposts are gone: the French/Algerian lit crit crowd has gotten to Western history and make their points in Latinate neologisms to ensure we get the precise meaning they intend. A puzzled veteran academic listserver reports that the Western History Quarterly recently addressed the sexuality and "homosociality" of Wyatt Earp”. (I guess they don’t want to say, “was Earp Gay?” so as a backup asked if he hung out with other guys.) Another recent paper was entitled "Pathologized Hybridities and Anthropological Provincialities." (Hard to tell whether this was meant to be sarcastic.) I know a writer of Westerns who used to wax eloquent about stuck-up fancy academic critics of genre Westerns, but it was all minor compared to this impenetrability. Makes one think of a snake oil pitch in one of those old Westerns where a quack comes to town with a decorated wagon to peddle what is essentially the same old booze given a fancy new name and -- with luck -- a new bottle.

So my summary is that “Ride the High Country” is a very fine movie with excellent actors. The commentary is self-important nonsense. But there is another “bonus” on the disc which is Peckinpah’s sister, gracefully and intelligently trying to explain how it was that Sam -- from a family of judges and legislators -- tried to compensate for being a tender artistic guy by being tougher than tough, the way he imagined his ancestors to be, and overshot into alcoholism and cocaine addiction. She remembers the idyllic days on the High Sierra ranch outside Fresno where she and Sam rode bareback through spectacular landscape like the one in this movie. She remembers her father’s rock-ribbed moral code and her mother’s over-attachment to Sam. Coarse Gold is still there, the family ranch is still there, but she says there’s no use in trying to return to the past. “Sometimes I think they should just burn it all down and let it be ashes.” But that’s no way to get rid of a ghost, a shimmering morphing mirage.

VALIER AND WATER

VALIER AND WATER    4/10/08


LAKE FRANCIS, NEITHER SUMMER NOR WINTER

VALIER’S WATER HISTORY

In the beginning was the prairie, shaped by run-off from the Rocky Mountains. The Blackfeet knew the waterways, the coulees they made, and grassy meadows good for horses. When the reservation was marked out, the rivers formed the boundaries. The fact that rivers sometimes changed channels was not helpful, but at least a stream was a clear marker. Birch Creek -- just north of Valier -- has been the southern boundary for many years, since it was moved back for the third time under pressure from ranchers.

At the end of the War Between the States, two young Confederate veterans, William and Charles Conrad (Charles having been a member of Mosby’s Raiders at age sixteen) from a Virginia plantation came to the east slope of the Rockies. They were tough opportunists who soon made a fortune among the freighters who as often carried alcohol to Indians as not. Using the capital thus acquired, the two filed homestead claims on what had been reservation, using their employees in tricky ways to file on every source of water, so that they had a monopoly and no one else could ranch there.

Employees married to Piegan women managed to get control of water rights even on the reservation. When Birch Creek moved north in some places, the Conrads were quick to claim the land that changed sides. These were open range years, but the Seven Block claimed enormous acreage. When the ranches began to fence, the Conrads moved to the new scheme of irrigating land.

Ignoring any laws (there were few then anyway) except maybe a handshake agreement with the Indian Agent and a few other bigshots, the Conrads (with federal subsidies) built Swift Dam and doing business as the Pondera County Canal and Reservoir Company constructed a complex of ditches and impoundments all along the south side of Birch Creek. (They later sold out.) In 1965 the ambiguity over who owned and should maintain Swift Dam resulted in a lack of maintenance that allowed the structure to be overtopped and washed out, sending a deadly thirty foot wall of water downstream where it killed many people. The dam was rebuilt.

Next to the little town of Valier, named for an engineer, was a small lake on the south side of today’s little “island” in Lake Frances, named for one of the Conrad wives. This became the property of the Pondera County Canal and Reservoir Company for the purpose of selling shares that divvy up the water rights. The water in that lake belongs to the Canal Company and could not, for instance, be pumped out to water yards in Valier. There is presently muttering that irrigation has been expanded and additional shares quietly sold, but this is a minor problem compared to two others.

The first is climate change which has not only much diminished snowfall that once left a huge reservoir of water in the mountains, but also causes much moisture to fall as rain rather than snow, so that it is not kept in the mountains. The prairie is also droughty, so that the need is higher and evaporation loss is greater.

The second is that the movement to regularize and legalize water rights has meant that the original Piegan peoples who needed only small amounts of water are now ready to begin irrigating their own alfalfa fields and they have first claim on the water, according to the Winters decision which gives all federally established entities as much water as they need to function according to their purpose. The purpose of the reservation is to support the tribal members. Settling this now might mean as much as a 30% loss of water for the Pondera Canal Company. The tribe knows it will only get one shot at setting the terms of this negotiation and they are good “bone game” players, so they are deliberately as ambiguous and slow as they can be, which wears on the nerves of the ranchers.

Once “Lake Frances” had been established, it attracted the attention of fishermen, whom the town businessmen see as a source of income, buying bait and meals. A little campground is constantly under pressure to expand and upgrade, with fishermen sometimes helping. Because the east front temperature sinks way below zero in the winter, ice fishing is as popular as small boat fishing in summer.

Other water-based recreation -- sail-boarding in summer and ice-sailing in winter (the constant winds clean snow off the ice but are sometimes too overpowering), jet-skiing, and so on -- brings in customers for the cafes and motels and sometimes claims lives. The emotional investment in Lake Frances is high, but locals don’t always remember that it is privately owned. Because the state plants fish, there are rules to follow.

When water levels were high, there was a genuine small island in Lake Frances where waterfowl and herons could nest in the small grove. Seagulls have also chosen the protection of the island to nest. But recently there is never enough water in the lake to keep the island separate and the fishermen have become fond of driving their boat trailers out there to launch from a dock brought from Bynum by the fishermen. A local construction company owner helpfully graveled the little trail so people wouldn’t get stuck.

Valier has been shrinking. Young people leave, ranches go into CRP, dealers dependent on ranches go out of business -- it’s a familiar pattern across the West. People seem to be moving in, but they are as different from the locals as the first Belgians brought in by their priest were from their Piegan predecessors. These new people have money, are attracted by scenery and lofty sentiments, but do not understand drought. Among them are bird-lovers, who recently discovered that there are many dead birds on that island -- whether shot, run-over by ATV’s, trampled by teens, or what. They have national connections and resources and do not hesitate to invoke the federal laws (actually international treaty laws) that impose felony penalties of fines and jail on any unlawful killing of just about any bird you could name, including the seagulls that many of the cleanliness-obsessed locals despise as messy garbage eaters.

So now we have a rich tangle of precedents, feelings, laws and preferences that date back to the beginning and that affect everyone local. The Pondera Canal Company claims it will simply shut down the island and the little campground -- maybe bulldoze the island out of existence, but it has a federal sanctuary designation which locals had thought was more of an honor than a restriction. The mayor will erect signs and barriers and suggests siccing the fishermen on the bird-lovers. The constant arguments are beginning to start feuds around town.

There is only one kind of person who benefits from all this -- the writer, especially the historian. I’ll keep you posted. No use letting it go to waste. Shall I post a bibliography?

EFFIGY by Alissa York

“Effigy” is by Canadian author Alissa York. The novel is about a well-known atrocity in the American Southwest, the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It won’t get Mitt Romney any votes, nor are you likely to be told the story by a faithful Mormon. Briefly, the incident involves Indians and Mormons disguised as Indians attacking an emigrant wagon trail, murdering all but the small children, and looting the belongings. But this is not a history story (that’s been done): rather it is a reflection, a flight of fancy, and an occasion for poetic language describing intense scenes. The central character is a little girl who is rescued (though the rescue is not a particularly benign one in such a harsh world) and who grows up to be a taxidermist, thus producing the “effigies” of the title.

York’s reference bibliography is almost entirely American, though she started from an account of a B.C. Mormon community. She repeatedly draws on an old-fashioned guide to taxidermy methods. (These methods are no longer used and she occasionally skips a few steps, like tanning.) The only admirable full-grown male is not the Pater Familias who takes her as his fourth wife so she can “resurrect” his kills, but rather the Alpha wolf of a small family Dorrie is supposed to mount. He has survived but the female and cubs have become a blood sacrifice among many others.

The second epigram -- about effigies -- is from Sylvia Plath: “How I would like to believe in tenderness--/ the face of the effigy, gentled by candles,/Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.” “Bending” becomes “Bendy,” a contortionist and horse whisperer whose arrival sets the domestic plot in motion long after the massacre and who finally gives Dorrie her tenderness.

It is said that there are two kinds of literature these days: those that rely on plot and those that are an occasion for extraordinary language. This is clearly the latter. If you go to York’s website, www.elissayork.com, you’ll find examples. She works in an imagistic way, free-associating, relying on fine-grained senses to bring the bizaare alive. I have never before read a description of how to “mount” a silkworm. (The second wife of this man raises silk worms.) Sometimes she misses: a wolf’s nose is not “mushy” but leathery, just like a dog’s nose.

The 37-year-old author, who was born in Athabasca, Alberta, has lived all over Canada. From her home in Toronto, where she moved from Winnipeg two years ago, York says her goal is to provoke strong emotional reactions in her readers. "I want people to really feel a lot. It's not my goal to just make people think. I want them to think, but I want them, more than anything, to feel." (from a review in the Calgary Herald)

Critics compare her prose to Cormac McCarthy’s: there she is, writing about historic atrocities south of the border, weaving her suffering, barely surviving characters through events, using language that is old-fashioned, poetic, dripping with blood. The story is woven in sections as it follows different characters. There are four wives: the matriarch who was devoted to Brigham Young; the English girl who knows one thing, to raise silk; the stage discard who is proficient at erotics, right down to using an effective abortifacient so she’s never out of action; and the massacre survivor taxidermist who relates the massacre with a dreaming crow’s eye view. A Paiute Indian lends his skills to the Patriarch, Erastus Hammer, who is so near-sighted that the Indian, “Tracker,” must do his shooting for him, maintaining the fiction that Hammer is a crack shot. Hammer’s son, Lal, is stupid, unlike his conniving father.

The inevitable rebellion comes about when Lal begins to sleep with the former actress while yearning for the silk-maker. At the same time Tracker forms an alliance with the wolf. “Bendy” gentles the taxidermy wife, whose adopted mother provides the actual history in letters written as she dies. A person could get symbolic meanings out of all this, but as York herself says, no two people ever see it the same way. The story is dense, doubling back, moving slowly, recovering personal histories, sketching vignettes. But it rewards meditation, not just about religiously empowered imitations of Jehovah, but also about the relationships among women and the lives of animals. It is the CONTEXT of the powerful men that we don’t usually get in Westerns.

The formal “myth” of the West is that it was as empty a space as the moon, that heroic men came and built homes where they sheltered families, the beginning of patriotism and culture. In York’s version the anti-heroes come to a pre-existing land where they take what they want from the indigenous, the weak, the female, and the unwary newcomers. Hammer’s horse business is based on the animals he acquired at the massacre, and his business goes downhill because he does not take proper care of the animals. His first wife runs the dairy and the children; the second wife produces the silk and the pregnancies; the third wife entertains him in her fanciful and sterile way; the fourth wife is a resurrection artist who only produces simulacra of animals he needs Tracker to shoot. He is a contemptible and phony creature.

Not that York makes a big fuss about pointing it out. She assumes we can see for ourselves. Her task is to present evidence as vividly and in as much researched detail as she can. Her gift is the language that makes this possible as well as endurable. It’s interesting to speculate on what Wallace Stegner would think of this book -- I suspect he would dislike the writing but admire the writer, though she doesn’t seem so ladylike. I wonder what Stegner thought of Zane Grey -- whom I speculate would love both York's writing and York. Of course, each man loved the West.

THE WHITE DOVE by Jane Candia Coleman

In a time when early Christian mission work in the United States is often interpreted as empire-building at the expense of the indigenous people, how is it possible to admire a Jesuit figure like Father Kino, though he might be a builder of beautiful churches and originator of excellent agricultural practices as well as the breeding of fine animals like the famous “Barb” horses? Where do we find sympathy with a theologically conservative celibate loyal to his Pope?

For Jane Candia Coleman in her poetry epic celebrating his life, after studying his papers for a decade, sees the answer in the land. Her insight is that Father Kino -- whose name means “China” -- really wanted to take the same path as Teilhard de Chardin took later to the broad lands of China but literally drew the short straw. Another monk went to Asia and Father Kino was assigned to the American Southwest. His reward was finding that what he thought would be in China was also present in the southwest: the land as access to God.

Coleman’s poems, meditative and full of praise, capture the experience of worship in psalm-like moments of insight. Often her reference is to de Chardin, another Jesuit who lived a century later. For instance, for her poem “Therefore I Am,” the epigram is a de Chardin quote: “If I should lose all faith in God, I think I should continue to invincibly believe in the world.” Then the poem:

Why, here also is music!
The rest between notes,
the interminable breath
between sound and sound.

Is not silence
as much a language
as any other
and filled with possibility?

As when God enthroned
in thunderous silence
looked upon a void
and knew these stones
still warm beneath my hand
though it be night.

Father Kino was known for two main things: his warmth and kindness in persuading the Indians of northern Mexico and the SW United States to come to the church and the Mission ways of living, and his great interest in cartography which led both to road-building that connected remote villages and to sea routes, including an understanding of Baja California as a peninsula instead of an island. One might more accurately locate him as a father of de Chardin than the other way around, but both were great lovers and appreciators of the land, creation as access to the Creator. Kino got into trouble with the authorities when he opposed the use of forced Indian labor to mine silver for Spain and he lost colleagues in uprisings. His was a life of risk and effort, but that is not the emphasis of this book.

By supplying Father Kino with vivid poetic epiphanies of relationship that illustrate ideas about spirituality, Coleman makes him real and convincing to modern people, whatever their ethnicity or politics. Coleman’s cover and title, “The White Dove,” comes from the familiar name of the Mission San Xavier del Bac near Tucson. A gorgeous moonlight portrait by Helga Teiwes of the present building is on the cover. Made of local earth, given a voice by a Spanish bell, it makes an excellent metaphor.

I’m not qualified to discuss poetry as poetry, but these individually whole poems remind me quite a bit of the work of Mary Oliver -- clear, simple, and penetrating. Here’s one of my favorites, entitled “Offertory”

He is many-colored,
startling in his swiftness
this lizard that darts across the altar.
He is seen, then unseen
like the edges of thought.

As I offer the Host
I am silenced
by the incongruity
the simple trust
of all things living,
even as I celebrate
the Word made flesh.

Halted in the act of prayer
I ponder for one moment
the universality
of gesture, action, belief,

Tell me, I say to both
creature and Creator,
tell me for whom miracles
happen. Tell me that even the smallest
are blessed, and that I may indulge
in delight at the sign of one quick,
flickering lizard upon this humble altar.

A practiced and award-winning writer of history and fiction, Coleman steps easily into poetry. These poems are worthy of use as daily devotions, contemplations, yet they’re simple and whole as smooth stones. They’re not “churchy” nor dogmatic. This modest and valuable book would make a cherished gift.

“The White Dove” by Jane Candia Coleman. Published by High Plains Press. ISBN 978-0-931271-83-0

COWBOY, SAVE THAT BOOK!

In these days of print as ephemera and books as somehow compromised unless they are Googled or Kindled, I am bemused by this automatic newsletter that I get from Buckingham Books. I keep thinking to myself, I thought Westerns were OVER! So why are these books so expensive?

I scan anxiously to see whether I have any thousand dollar books. So far I’ve only turned up one worth a couple of hundred dollars, but it was a history of Universalism.

Why is this book dealer, which evidently specializes in Western books, actually in Pennsylvania? At one time that was the frontier West, but that was quite a while ago.

I notice how many are “privately printed,” which means self-published, which is supposed to be a major no-no that renders a book less valuable. And they are often small, local, and not illustrated. Maybe extremely limited in number. But they are what Mary Clearman Blew called “first generation history,” sometimes written by eyewitnesses and sometimes by descendants or obsessed amateur historians. Some of it, like the broadside about barbed wire, is frank ephemera now made valuable by time. "Suitable for framing." I'm sure you can deduce the moral of the story.

They seem to have nice covers, maybe “stamped Morocco leather” with slipcases. I know that among the Western art aficionadoes it is the custom to put leather covers and slip cases on the first fifty or a hundred copies of a book. Bob Scriver put the “presentation” copies of “The Blackfeet: Artists of the Northern Plains” in a slipcase that had a kind of box on the front. In the box was a spray of perennial sage, a valued Blackfeet plant. Might not mean much if you have it growing in your lawn, but what if you lived somewhere far away?

I won’t reproduce all the offerings here, but if you’re interested, I’m sure Buckingham Books will put you on the list.


1. JONES, C.N. [COMPILED BY]. EARLY DAYS IN COOKE COUNTY 1848 - 1873. Gainesville: Privately printed, n.d. [ca 1936]. First edition. 8vo. Printed wrappers, 88 pp., preface, frontis. [portrait], illustrated from photographs. A history of Cooke County, Texas with emphasis upon early settlers, pioneer doctors, cotton and wheat growing, county buildings, slavery, Indian raids, outlaws and lawmen, ranching, experiences of early settlers, a brief history of all the towns in the county, etc. There is material on the emigrant trail to California, the Butterfield Overland Trail, Chisholm Trail, open range ranching, early cattle drives, etc. Herd 1188 says, "Rare." Six Guns 1191 says, "Rare." "Though a comparatively recent book, this volume seems to have become rare. It contains some material on outlawry." Former owner's small stamp on inside front cover, else near fine in original stapled, stiff, wrappers, housed in a quarter leather and cloth clamshell case with raised bands and gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 SIX GUNS 1191. HERD 1188. CBC 1121. (23663)

2. CLAY, JOHN. THE SHEEP HERDER'S GRAVE. A STORY OF THE RANGE. [Chicago: Traders Printing Co.] n.d. [ca 1930]. First edition. 8vo. Two color printed wrappers, 15 pp., illustrated, advertisement. Story of a man, Joseph Arthur, who had a fine life in England, but due to his fondness for alcohol lost his family, farm, and eventually left for the United States to perhaps find his way again. Next we find a sheep herder, named "English Joe" who resides in his camp in Wyoming. He still has his fondness for alcohol, when he can gather up enough money and the time to indulge in it, but his is a lonely and fallen existence. He was liked by the ranchers and had many friends. He died from exposure during a bitter snow storm and was found and buried by his friends in Wyoming. Light evidence of water staining to edges of all pages, else a very good copy of a rare item. Housed in a quarter morocco and cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 (24793)

3. CLAY, JOHN. THE CRY OF THE HOUNDS. [Chicago: Privately Printed] 1933. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed "Dear Mrs Cross, I send you this story because I love you. John Clay." Blue-green decorated wrappers, glassine endpapers, 29 pp., illustrated. A Christmas greeting from Mr. and Mrs. John Clay. Holiday greetings sheet bound in. Clay tells many stories about people and fox hunts during his days of riding to the cry of the hounds. Fine, bright copy. Housed in a cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on spine. $1500.00 (24795)

4. HARMAN, S.W. HELL ON THE BORDER; HE HANGED EIGHTY-EIGHT MEN. Fort Smith: The Phoenix Publishing Company, 1898. First edition. Cloth, 718pp., numerous illustrations, facsimiles. Sub-title: A History of the Great United States Criminal Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and of Crime and Criminals in the Indian Territory, and the Trial and Punishment Thereof Before His Honor Judge Isaac C. Parker, "The Terror of Law-Breakers", and by the Courts of Said Territory, Embracing the Leading Sentences and Charges to Grand and Petit Juries Delivered by the World Famous Jurist..... "An important source book, all the statistical part of the book, the biographical sketches of those connected with the court and the transcriptions from the court records, were the work of C.P. Sterns and are said to be scrupulously accurate. The same cannot be said of all the narrative written by Harman."---Graff 1785. "Exceedingly rare. The rare original has become a collectors item and is the chief source of practically every book and feature story on the old court and Oklahoma outlaws.... The first edition was soon exhausted because of the reputation of Judge Parker's court.... The book contains much material on the outlaws of Indian Territory who were tried and condemned in Parker's court."---Ramon Adams(1969). "....the great book about Judge Isaac Parker and his federal court at Fort Smith. One of the Dalton brothers was killed while serving as a deputy for the judge and, of course, there is much on outlaws and peace and peace officers."---Jeff Dykes in Rare Western Outlaw Books. A rare and important work. This work was originally published in wrappers, with 720 pages. Our copy has been rebound in green 3/4 leather and green marbled paper with green leather corner tips and raised bands with titles stamped in gold on black leather without retaining the wrappers or the frontis. As issued, the last 6 pages are comprised of "Press Opinions" provided to the publisher to help promote the book (pages 715-720). Our copy is missing the corner of pages 717 & 718, resulting in the loss of some text, and pages 719 & 720 are not present. However facsimile copies of pages 717, 718, 719, and 720 have been obtained to ensure total reading of the "Press Opinions." They are laid-in. Leather binding and remainder of text block is clean and tight. Despite the minor faults noted above, this is a desirable copy of a classic outlaw rarity! A handsome copy housed in a matching 3/4 leather and green marbled paper with raised bands on the spine and titles stamped in gold on black leather labels. $3750.00 HOWES H203 ("b"). GRAFF 1785. ADAMS 150-68. RADER 1780. DYKES pp.19 & 22. SIX-GUNS 929. DECKER 46:210. (25238)

5. [PACIFIC NORTHWEST]. MULLAN, CAPT. JOHN. REPORT ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MILITARY ROAD FROM FORT WALLA-WALLA TO FORT BENTON. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. First edition. 8vo. Original dark green cloth, titles in gold gilt on the spine, 363 [2] pp., errata page, illustrated, plates, tables, charts, maps. With 10 full-page colored lithograph plates. The four folding maps consist of MAP 1: Map of military road from Fort Walla-Walla on the Columbia to Fort Benton on the Missouri; MAP 2: Map of the mountain section of the Fort Walla-Walla & Fort Benton military wagon road from Coeur d'Alene Lake to the Dearborn River Washington Territory; MAP 3: Map of military reconnaissance from Fort Taylor to the Coeur d'Alene Mission, Washington Territory; and MAP 4: Map of military reconnaissance from Fort Dalles, Oregon, via Fort Wallah-Wallah, to Fort Taylor, Washington Territory. Capt. Mullan's report with an itinerary comprises pages 1 - 84 and is followed by the engineer's reports and other meteorological and astronomical data. It covers the period from March, 1858, to September, 1862. Streeter IV 2103 says, "This is a first class report to read and the maps are most helpful in tracing journeys of others. The colored plates add to the interest. Mullan makes the interesting statement towards the beginning of his report (p.6) that he did not realize for the first few years of his work that climatic conditions at Clark's Fork at around Lake Pend d'Oreille were easier in winter than at Coeur d'Alene Lake, though the latter was further south, and that if he had known in 1854 what he did not learn until 1860 he would have located his road by the more northern route." Very good copy. A scarce report. $2000.00 STREETER IV 2103. WAGNER/CAMP 393. GRAFF 2932. HOWES M884. SABIN 51275. PLATH 780. HOLLIDAY 802. BRAISLIN 1346. (25725)

6. JENNINGS, AL. NUMBER 30664 BY NUMBER 31539. A SKETCH IN THE LIVES OF WILLIAM SIDNEY PORTER (O. HENRY) AND AL JENNINGS, THE BANDIT. [Hollywood: The Pioneer Press, 1941]. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed by Al Jennings, "To Almarie Harriss with an old bandit's love. Al Jennings." Grey printed wrappers, 32 pp., frontis., foreword, introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits. A story of the prison life of O. Henry and Al Jennings. Six Guns 1171 says, "Rare." Lightly soiled on the rear panel, and two small spots on front cover, else a fine, bright copy. Housed in a two-tone cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 SIX GUNS 1171. (23585)

7. MCGEENEY, P.S. DOWN AT STEIN'S PASS. A ROMANCE OF NEW MEXICO. Boston: Angel Guardian Press, 1909. First edition. 12mo. Red pictorial cloth, [6], 114 pp., frontis., portrait. Six Guns 1402 says "Although fiction, this book is included because it is a collector's item among works on Billy the Kid. The account of the killing of the Kid by Garrett is based upon fact, but the rest is romance." Dykes 58: "Rare." ".... but so far as is known it is the first novel in hard covers in which Billy the Kid is an important character. Almost the only incident in the novel that is based on fact is the killing of the Kid at Maxwells." A collectors item for Billy the Kid. Covers lightly rubbed else a very good, tight copy. $750.00 DYKES 58. SIX GUNS 1402. (23726)

9. [MISSOURI]. BRYAN, WM. S. AND ROBERT ROSE. A HISTORY OF THE PIONEER FAMILIES OF MISSOURI, WITH NUMEROUS SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ADVENTURES, ETC., RELATING TO EARLY DAYS IN MISSOURI. ALSO THE LIVES OF DANIEL BOONE AND THE CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEF BLACK HAWK, WITH NUMEROUS BIOGRAPHIES AND HISTORIES OF PRIMITIVE INSTITUTIONS. St. Louis: Bryan, Brand & Co., 1876. First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth, blind stamped on front and rear covers, title stamped in gilt on the spine, brown endpapers, [6], 528 pp., frontis., preface, illustrated, plates. The histories of more than eight hundred pioneer families of the five counties embraced in this work are given, with the names of their children, and other matters of interest. Mr. Rose had personally visited one or more members of each family whose history is provided. The five counties are Audrain, Callaway, Montgomery, Warren, and St. Charles. Much on the early days and the Indian Wars, especially the Black Hawk War. Also the history of Daniel Boone and Black Hawk are provided in some depth. The book's former owner's name, T. J. Boulware, is written in the book and on page 310 his family ancestors are discussed. The names of other Boulware family members are also included stating that as of Jan. 5, 1934, this book became their property, and later in the same year, 10-20-34, another family member obtained ownership of this book. Some light cosmetic repairs to spine ends and corners, else very good copy of an elusive title, housed in a cloth slipcase. $1000.00 HOWES B895. (25718)

10. BROOKS, JUANITA. JOHN DOYLE LEE: ZEALOT - PIONEER BUILDER - SCAPEGOAT. Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1961. First edition. 8vo. First limited edition of 209 copies. This copy was released one year prior to the red cloth trade edition. The correct first edition issued in only a miniscule printing of 209 copies, of which none were offered for sale. Copies were given to descendants of John D. Lee as well as to friends of the publisher and author. Blue cloth, blue foil stamping on spine and rules, top edge stained blue, 404 pp., frontis. [portrait of John Doyle Lee], introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits, bibliographical note, index. AHC 35 says, "This biography received an award of merit from the Association for State and Local History upon publication. Lee was the only man convicted of perpetrating the Mountain Meadows Massacre. His detailed diaries of his life in southern Utah, before and after the massacre, were edited by Brooks and published by the Huntington Library. The diary for the period of the massacre has never been released by the L.D.S. archives." Brooks was a niece of LeRoy Hafen, and an extremely competent scholar, friend of Dale Morgan, and indefatigable searcher of the truth. She faced considerable criticism within the Mormon Church, of which she remained a devout member, as a result of her scholarly writings. Juanita Brooks grew up in southern Utah and learned of the infamous massacre of 1857 through vague rumors and whispered stories. She was determined to learn the truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and eventually published her masterpiece, THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE in 1950. This led to a lifelong interest in John D. Lee, and her two subsequent major publications: the massive two volume DIARIES OF JOHN D. LEE, published in 1955 by the Huntington Library, and this full length biography of Lee, first published in 1961. Former owner's bookplate on front free fly leaf, and inked name and address on front pastedown sheet, lightly rubbed along edges and corners, else near fine copy in a custom made cloth slipcase with leather label on spine. Very scarce edition of this important work. $2500.00 AHC 35. SIX GUNS 286. MATTES 305. (24726)

12. REYNOLDS, JOHN. MY OWN TIMES, EMBRACING ALSO, THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE. [Belleville: B. H. Perryman and H. L. Davison], 1855. First edition. 16mo. Contemporary leather spine and tips over marbled boards, title and decorations on the spine in gilt, teg., 600 plus xxiii [1] pp., frontis. [portrait of John Reynolds], introduction, contents. This first edition was published with 400 copies being issued, and Reynolds had remaindered 350 of these copies to D. B. Cook of Chicago, and most of the copies were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1857. Reynolds acted as his own wholesaler to market the book. He served as a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, and was elected Governor of Illinois in 1830. Reynolds writes an observant history, including much on the Black Hawk War. This is a history of Illinois from 1800 combined with the author's autobiographical reminiscences. One of the essential books relating to the early midwest, covering the settlement of the Illinois country, the later Lovejoy riots, the Black Hawk War, the Nauvoo Mormons, and the Icarian Community. In writing the work, Reynolds had the aid of two of his literary friends, John Mason Peck and John Russell. The help that Peck gave may have been considerable. Lyman C. Draper also helped by answering inquiries and supplying maps for the author's use in his study of the Black Hawk War. The book is esteemed as a source book of the first consequence, much sought, and very difficult to obtain. Former owner's name written lightly in pencil on the title page, former owner's penciled notes on rear free endpaper, light wear to the extremities, else a very good, tight copy of a very rare book. Slipcase. $3500.00 HOWES R231. EBERSTADT 135:380. GRAFF 3479. BUCK 57. BYRD 2343. SABIN 70420. DECKER 50:129. STREETER III:1510. SIEBERT II:416. (25715)

13. [ILLINOIS & MICHIGAN]. HAMILTON, HENRY E. INCIDENTS AND EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF GURDON SALTONSTALL HUBBARD. COLLECTED FROM PERSONAL NARRATIONS AND OTHER SOURCES, AND ARRANGED BY HIS NEPHEW, HENRY E. HAMILTON, 1888. [Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co.,], 1888. First edition. 8vo. Rebound in black kangaroo leather, gold stamping on front cover and spine, raised bands, new beige-colored endpapers, [4], 189 pp., frontis. [engraved portrait of G. S. Hubbard]. Gurdon Hubbard (1802 - 1886) was both an adventurous pioneer and an excellent businessman. Hubbard came to Chicago in 1818 as an employee of the American Fur Company. He went by way of the Illinois River to St. Louis and Cahokia, spent the winter at a post near Hennepin and in the spring returned to Mackinac. He was with the Illinois Brigade again in the winters of 1821-22 and 1822-23. Hubbard, born in Vermont, went to work as a boy of sixteen for the American Fur Company and was stationed at the company's post on the Illinois River, subsequently being transferred to a Michigan post. Hubbard settled in Chicago in 1834. He was one of its first trustees and later one of its leading citizens. The book has much on the early history of the Illinois and Michigan Country. It is one of the best books relating to the interior of the lower peninsula of Michigan, especially the western portion, and furnishes a valuable picture of northern Illinois during the fur trading period. The Hubbard Trail, which is Route 1 along the eastern portion of Illinois, was traveled and established by him in 1822 as he traveled the many miles from Chicago to Danville, Illinois. Hubbard had an early trading post in Danville where he lived from 1828 until 1834. Beautifully bound, this is a near fine copy housed in a cloth slipcase with leather label on spine and titles stamped in gold. $1500.00 HOWES H735. GRAFF 1997. BUCK 132. STREETER III 1517. LITTELL 505. GREENLY [MICHIGAN] 120. DECKER 49 106. HUBACH pp.52-53. (25722)

14. MARCH, P.G. WORCESTER'S PATENT FENCE STAY. FOR PLAIN, BARBED, BUCKTHORN OR RIBBON WIRE FENCES. SIMPLE! CHEAP! DURABLE! USEFUL! Cincinnati: P.G. March $ Co., 1883. 10 1/2' x 13 1/4" light blue broadside printed in black. Directions are provided on how to apply the stay, "After the barbed wires are stretched tight, and firmly stapled to the wooden posts, draw the hooked wire out of coil, and place the coil in a vertical position, against the barbed wires; which wires will naturally go into the recesses of the coil. Then run the hooked wire down the coil, and on the other side of the barbed wires, until the hook touches the top round of the coil, and hangs over the top strand." Lamar Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West says, "The effect of barbed wire on life in the Great Plains was momentous.... It brought about the disappearance of the open range... Barbed wire put an end to the 'long drive' and gave the railroads a boost in their drive to enlist the trade of the cattlemen. Wars broke out between those who accepted the fence and those who refused to relinquish the open range. Fence-cutters were enlisted by the latter group..." A few original folds for mailing, else a fine, bright copy of an item that is unique and is rarely found in such fine condition. It is suitable for framing. $575.00 (18940)

INSCRIBED PRESENTATION BY AL JENNINGS WITH A THREE PAGE LETTER FROM JENNINGS TO HIS WIFE

17. JENNINGS, AL. NUMBER 30664 BY NUMBER 31539. A SKETCH IN THE LIVES OF WILLIAM SIDNEY PORTER (O. HENRY) AND AL JENNINGS, THE BANDIT. [Hollywood: The Pioneer Press, 1941]. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed by Al Jennings. Laid-in is a three page letter, written in pencil to Mrs. Al Jennings. He comments about his stay in Washington, D.C., "I am sitting on my trunk in a little cubby hole & paid $3.00 for one week. The show folded leaving all hands flat. Some damn good people. I look out to my self dodging all appeals for help. ....Best Love Old Dear to you, AL." The letter was written in May of 1938, and the original envelope is enclosed. Grey printed wrappers, 32 pp., frontis., foreword, introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits. A story of the prison life of O. Henry and Al Jennings. Six Guns 1171 says, "Rare." Fine, bright copy. Housed in a cloth four-point folding case with gold stamping on the spine. $2500.00 SIX GUNS 1171. (25802)


18. [COLORADO & NEW MEXICO]. TAYLOR, H.M., S.H. STANDART AND D.R. WARNER. CIRCULAR LETTER TO THE RANGE CATTLE AND HORSE MEN OF THE UNITED STATES MEXICO AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. [Denver: Privately printed, n.d. (ca 1885)]. First edition. Quarto. Printed self wrapper, [4] pp., double columns. Taylor, the designated Secretary of the organization notes: "Introductory measures have been taken by the cattle and horse men of New Mexico and Colorado looking to the perfecting of a distinctively range organization of an international character...." The circular includes the memorial unanimously adopted by the New Mexico Territorial Cattle and Horse Growers' association at their meeting held in Santa Fe on October 31, 1885. To promote cattlemen interests from "the breeding grounds in Old Mexico to the steer ranges in the British possessions..." To protect the range interests and to educate the people of the east that "are not familiar with the requirements of the cattle growing interests of the plains. They know little or nothing of our system of breeding and maturing cattle..." The memorial speaks to costs, diseases, freight rates, etc. [D. R. Warner was the Secretary for the New Mexico cattlemen]. Also included in this circular are the comments from a meeting of the Colorado Cattle Growers' association held in Denver on November 3, 1885, and reported by S. H. Standart, the secretary for that organization. Stressing the problems faced by the cattlemen and the need for an International Range Cattle and Horse Growers' association. "Experience the past season has demonstrated the fact that the marketing of immature and unripe cattle is not satisfactory to either buyer or seller, and entails an annual loss of millions of dollars, without any compensating benefits to the beef consumers of the nation." The organizers believed the two National Livestock Associations could not protect the range and other interests of cattlemen in the West. Not in HERD, Wynar, Streeter Sale, and the other usual standard references. Old folds and a few minor tears to the extremities, else very good copy, laid in half morocco and chemise slipcase with titles stamped in gold on spine. $5250.00 (25803)


I don’t have these books. Contact:
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