Catalog Archive
Auction 165, Lot 175

"Sketch of the Routes of Hunt & Stuart", Irving, Washington

Subject: Western United States

Period: 1836 (published)

Publication: Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains

Color: Black & White

Size:
17.7 x 9.3 inches
45 x 23.6 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

Describing an expedition launched just a few years after Lewis & Clark's epic journey, this map covers the same region - from the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri, up the Missouri, across the Rocky Mountains and through the Pacific Northwest, extending to well below Lake Bonneville Salt Water. The southern portion of the map is mostly blank except for a long, straight Colorado of the West with many tributaries originating in the Rockies. The Great Basin region has three lakes and a few land-locked rivers. The routes of the two explorers are delineated with dotted lines with Stuart's party reaching all the way to Astoria near the mouth of the Columbia River. Wheat says "for what it purports to be it is an excellent map."

The map is the result of a commercial exploration directed by John Jacob Astor. The expedition was sent in 1811 to seek an overland route to the Pacific. Washington Irving was commissioned by Astor to write the account of his company's effort to create a settlement in Oregon. The work and this map were not published until 1836. Reportedly engraved by Carey, Lea & Blanchard, but no attribution is given on the map.

References: Wheat (TMW) #419.

Condition: B+

Issued folding with faint offsetting, a few small repaired fold separations, and two insignificant areas of loss that have been infilled on verso with archival materials. There is a binding trim at lower right and an associated short binding tear that has also been archivally repaired on verso.

Estimate: $275 - $350

Unsold

Closed on 11/15/2017

Archived