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TJ Farnham's Second Map of the Texas & The West
1846 map of Texas and the West, drawn to accompany TJ Farnham's work.
Pre-dating the Gold Rush, the author's route to San Francisco via South Pass, The Great Salt Lake and Sutter's Colony is shown.
In California, only the Missions and coastal features are named. The area from New Mexico and the Rio Grande to Arkopolis or Little Rock is better defined, with significant information in Texas, including Austin, the Comanche lands, and a road from Natchitoches to San Antonio and on into Mexico.
One interesting location shown is "Brown's Hole," named for a French-Canadian trapper and early settler, Baptiste Brown, which would become Brown's Valley on the Green River. In the early 19th century, the area was inhabited by Comanche, Shoshoni, and Ute tribal groups. Blackfoot, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Navaho tribes also visited or used the area. The use of the area by Native Americans was documented by the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition and by the 1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition. In the 1830s the valley became a favorite location for fur trappers and settlers. In 1837 Fort Davy Crockett was constructed as a trading post and as defense against attacks by the Blackfoot. The fort was abandoned in the 1840s and the population of settlers declined. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the valley emerged among ranchers as a favorite wintering ground for cattle.
Thomas J. Farnham (1804-1848) travelled to the West Coast from Illinois with a group of green adventurers, almost none of whom, except Farnham and two others, actually made it to Oregon. From Oregon, Farnham went to Hawaii, came back to California, crossed Mexico, and went back to Illinois by way of the Mississippi River.
Farnham later returned to San Francsico, where he died. In his writings, he actively promoted U.S. expansion to the western parts of North America. Rittenhouse suggested that Farnham may have been a secret agent for the U.S. government.
![California and Nevada [Yosemite, Sacramento, and San Francisco Insets]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/79443.jpg)
