Searl a D (4 results)

Condition: New.

264 pp followed by index, b&w photographic and line illustrations, advertisements, prelims mildly foxed, else very good copy in illustrated, papered boards, with black. cloth spine.

Original cloth folder, spine repaired. Full hand color by Indian tribe. 3 views of buildings at bottom. Lined with modern japan paper. A very early, scarce map published soon after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

1st Edition. "Single sheet (26 2/8 x 20 4/8 inches). 1-page publisher's advertisement laid down on front paste-down. Fine folding lithographed map of Kansas with an inset map of Fort Riley and decorated with fine vignettes of the Ruins of Eldridge House, Lawrence, Kansas. Destroyed May 21st., 1856, Constitution Hall, Topeka, Kansas, and Eldridge House, Lawrence, Kansas (some browning at folds). Original publisher's brown cloth, gilt (some light wear at the head and foot of the spine). First edition, of an attractive map designed for use by settlers and speculators, but issued at the height of the conflict known as "Bleeding Kansas". The key shows symbols for an orderly state with towns, trading posts, post offices, missions, forts, Indian villages, roads & trails, Indian boundaries, and state lines, and it is no coincidence that the primary colored features on the map are tribal lands: Kansas or Kaws, Miamis, Sac & Foxes, Chippewas, Piankashaws & Weas, Ottaways, Peorias & Kaskaskias, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Pottawatamies, Delawares, Iowas, Wyandottes, and "Half Breed Land." The forts shown are Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, and the abandoned Fort Scott. Major routs shown are the "Fort Laramie Road," "California Road," "Oregon Road," and "Santa Fe Road." The orderliness of the map and the prominent depiction of Fort Riley belie the true state of affairs. The Compromise of 1850 had sought to settle the issues arising from the deepening sectional conflict over slavery, including whether new states could permit settlers of New Mexico and Utah to introduce or ban slavery when they sought statehood. The new legislation "briefly muted sectional antipathies and delayed civil war for a decade. But the controversial enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act proved deeply divisive, and the settlement finally unraveled in 1854, when an overconfident Douglas, in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, engineered the reversal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise and opened Kansas to slavery on the basis of the local-option principle. Northerners, furious at this use of one compromise to overturn another, abandoned the Democratic party in droves and flocked to the new Republican party" (John C. Inscoe for ANB). In an effort to encourage emigration Whitman and Searl state in their advertisement that "The undersigned, with a view to meet the urgent demand by emigrants, for accurate and reliable information with regard to the different sections of the Territory, propose to open an "Emigrant's Intelligence Office," in Lawrence, Kansas, and to devote a portion of our attention to this business" and offer their services as complete emigration agents, offering to find plots, supply information to interested parties, and complete surveys. Baughman, Kansas in Maps, pp. 52:3. Eberstadt 137:24. Graff 4640. Heaston, "Kansas Pocket Maps" 4. Jones, Adventures in Americana 1354. Phillips, Maps of America, p. 346. Rumsey 3069 Siebert Sale 7315:717. Streeter Sale 3903.". …