Scarce Variant Edition With The Rare Map and Full Complement of Ads
The folding map, present here in a beautiful example, was issued with only a few copies. Carl Wheat praises the map in glowing terms and spends several pages discussing the journey, saying that it has received less attention than it deserves. He notes that it is the earliest published map to show the middle Rocky Mountain region, through what is now southern Colorado; the first to depict several streams and rivers; and the first attempt to chart a route through Death Valley. Similarly, E. I. Edwards devotes a lengthy note on the book's importance to overland desert travel: "Of all the journals and diaries telling of the Mojave Desert crossing, none appears comparable to the Heap in sheer readability and in picturesque descriptive quality."
The present example, with the full complement of 46 pages of advertisements at back, can be described as a variant issue. Another issue had ad pages numbered 17-32 only.
The journal of the Beale-Heap expedition describes overland travel from Missouri to California in 1853. The special expedition was sent under the command of Edward F. Beale, going through the central Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1853. They arrived in Los Angeles in August of 1853. Beale and Heap were greatly influenced by Senator Benton in the choice of a central railroad route to the Pacific across Colorado and Nevada. This book presents one of the earliest detailed accounts of such a route.
Edward F. Beale, the new superintendent of Indian Affairs for the state of California, was sent west from Missouri in 1853 to "examine the Territories of New Mexico and Utah where their borders and those of California lie contiguous, and to ascertain whether lands existed there to which California Indians might be removed."... Gwinn Heap's journal provides detailed observations of the country along their route, much of which had never been previously described. Heap was Beale's cousin and was, throughout most of his career, a diplomat in various countries, primarily Tunis. The rare folding map is frequently lacking... It shows for the first time, the 1849 Death Valley pioneer route, as well as the middle Rocky Mountain region in Colorado - Hill.
The beautiful plates are lithographs by P. S. Duval of Philadelphia, and several exhibit subtle color tinting:
- Rafting Across Grand River. Color tinted.
- Spanish Peaks
- Lower Mouth of Huerfano Cañon
- Huerfano Butte
- First Camp. In the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
- Entrance of Sah Watch Valley, San Luis Valley and the Sierra Blanca in the distance
- Scenery in Sahwatch Valley
- Coochatope Pass. "The Gate of Buffaloes, in Sahwatch Mountains."
- Coochatope Pass
- Rio de la Laguna. Sierra de la Plata
- Crossing Laguna Creek
- Grand River, Below the Junction of the Uncompagre
- View on the Green River
Flake notes the book's importance in Mormon history, particularly aspects of Mormon-Native American relations:
Witnesses the evacuation of Paragonah as ordered by Brigham Young during the Walker War; visits Parowan; description of it and Little Salt Lake; Mormon custom of securing Indian babies; Mormon-Indian relations; polygamy.
Rarity
Examples with the map present are rare in the market. Going back to the mid-20th-century Wright Howes accorded this book a "b" rarity rating, given only to especially rare works.