2007 Catalog > 34. Simpson, Report and Map of the Wagon Road Routes in Utah Territory.
34. James H. Simpson. Report of the
Secretary of War, communicating, in compliance with a resolution of
the Senate, Captain Simpson’s Report and Map of the Wagon Road
Routes in Utah Territory (Washington, D.C.: Sen. Ex. Doc. No.
40, 35th Cong., 2nd sess., 1859). First
edition. 84 pgs. 8vo report with new quarter-bound cloth and
gilt-stamped spine. Contains the large folding map by Simpson:
“Preliminary Map of Routes Reconnoitred [sic] and Opened
in the Territory of Utah by Captain J. H. Simpson . . . in the Fall
of 1858” (New York: J. Bien, 1859). Lithograph, black and
white, as issued. 29 7/8 x 43" at neat line. Sheet size: 31 1/2
x 45 3/4". Report and binding are fine. Map has
several corner separations; two short fold splits in margin; faint
toning at edges; otherwise excellent. Overall a very clean example
with the elusive map.
Price: $950. [ Order ]
Ten years after Topographical Officer
Howard Stansbury first successfully reconnoitered the Great Basin,
Captain James H. Simpson returned to search for a wagon road through
Utah and Nevada from Camp Floyd at the south end of the Great Salt
Lake to Genoa east of Lake Tahoe. Earlier survey parties had
established routes through the northern basin, most notably along the
Humboldt River, and other routes skirted the region to the south.
Simpson found two paths through the center of the arid country that
reduced the trek to California by over two hundred miles. His routes
were almost immediately put into use by the Pony Express.
This document contains
Simpson’s reconnaissance reports during the fall of 1858 and
his outstanding, large, preliminary map showing the new wagon route.
The map extends from Fort Bridger on the east to Pilot Peak on the
west and from the north shore of the Great Salt Lake to south of Lake
Utah. The maps shows the routes of Stansbury and Beckwith, as well as
Simpson’s and includes excellent detail of the Mormon
settlements and the topography of the region. The report further
contains a preliminary report by Henry Engelmann on the geology of
the country between Camp Floyd and Fort Bridger and an appendix of
Ute and Shoshone vocabulary.
This report and its map
constituted the preliminary groundwork for Simpson’s expanded
report and map on the Great Basin, which he completed in 1859 but
which was not published until 1876.
Refs.: Wagner-Camp, 345; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, vol. IV, pp. 137–138, no. 998.