Beschreibung:

Title: Life of a Pioneer: Being the Autobiography of James S. Brown Author: Brown, James S[tephens] Place: Salt Lake City Publisher: Geo. Q. Cannon & Sons Co., Printers Date: 1900 Description: xix, [1], [9]-520 pp. With 7 full-page illustrations (5 from drawings, the others from photographs including the frontispiece portrait). 8¼x5¼, original brown cloth lettered in gilt. First Edition. Scarce autobiography of a Mormon pioneer who found adventure around the world. Brown converted to Mormonism at age twelve, was at Nauvoo, and was part of the great exodus across Iowa in 1846. The following year he joined the Mormon Battallion and went with it to California. He worked for John Sutter, helping to erect the famous mill, and was with James Marshall when the latter discovered gold. He then went back to Salt Lake City, but returned to California in 1849 and 1850 to mine for gold. He later sailed for the South Seas as a missionary. Very scarce - only one copy has sold at auction since 1975, in 1999, and that was this one. The scarcity is accounted for in a pencil note on the back of the frontispiece: "Almost entire edition destroyed by water & mice." Cowan p.77; Flake 900; Graff 426; Howes B489; Kurutz 86; Mattes 1663; Rocq 1811; Wheat Gold Rush 22. Lot Amendments Condition: Spine a little darkened, rubbing and wear to ends and corners; front hinge cracked, erasures to front free endpaper and back of frontispiece, causing some loss (and 1 tiny hole in frontispiece portrait itself), else very good. Item number: 160586