Larimer General William (1 results)

First edition. First edition. 8vo. Two-tone quarter leather and marbled paper over boards, marbled front and rear endpapers, 256 pp., top edges gilt, genealogical chart, chronological table, introduction, preface, illustrated from photographs, portraits, list of illustrations, index to names and topics. Larimer left a position of influence and comfort in Pittsburgh to become a pioneer in the West. Howes L 102 says: "Larimer was among the earliest Pike's Peak adventurers, and one of the founders of Denver." "General Larimer lost his large fortune in the depression of 1854 and started life anew in Nebraska, leaving his wife and nine children in Pittsburgh. Late in 1855 they joined him in La Platte, a town above Omaha founded by the General. In the fall of 1858, the General, his son W.H.H. Larimer, then not quite 18 years of age, and four others made the overland journey from Leavenworth, Kansas, by way of Bent's Fort to the new gold discoveries at Cherry Creek. Arriving at Cherry Creek on November 17, 1858 the General a few days later founded the Denver City Town Company. The son's narrative tells of these journeys and the founding of Denver by his father and life there until the Civil War. From page 210 to 237 the editor tells from family letters of the Civil War services of the General and his son and of the General's death in 1873. Ordinarily reminiscences are inferior to day by day contemporary accounts, but these are so skillfully edited and so buttressed by contemporary letters and extracts from note books that they form one of the best accounts of an overland journey across the plains and perhaps the best account of the founding of Denver and of life there for the first few years that we have" - Streeter. Rare. Printed in a small edition for private circulation by William Larimer Mellon." Bookplate of former owner on front and rear pastedown sheets, some light cosmetic restoration to the head of spine and corners, lightly rubbed on fore-edges, else a very good copy. Bookplates are for Herman Stearns Davis and Clark Secrest, who retired in 2001 as an editor with the Colorado Historical Society. There he researched and wrote numerous articles for the society's quarterly journal "Colorado Heritage.".