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Description

The First Atlas Map of Upper California

Important pre-Fremont map of Upper CA, showing Dr. Lyman's and Farnham's routes to CA. The 2nd Lake Timpanogos is almost gone. Sutter's Colony shown, before gold discovery. Missions & Channel Is. shown. Indian Tribes throughout. Mt. Shasta is "volcano". A primitive mountain range is now shown east of the Coastal mountains, blocking the river paths from San Francisco to Salt Lake. The early Spanish Missions in Upper California are all shown. A terrific pre-Fremont map.

Thomas Jefferson Farnam, a lawyer by trade, headed up an expedition to Oregon and California in 1839. The expedition, known as t he Peoria Party was organized to go to Oregon and "raise the American flag and run the Hudson's Bay Company out of the country". The members included in this expedition were: Amos Cook, James L. Fash, Francis Fletcher, Owen Garrett, Joseph Holman, Quincy Adams Jordan, Ralph L. Kilbourne, Robert Moore, Obadiah A. Oakley, Thomas Jefferson Pickett, John Prichard, Sydney Smith, Chauncey Wood, John J. Wood, Charles Yates and Thomas Jefferson Farnham. They were later joined by John L. Moore, Robert Shortess and W. Blair. T.J. Farnham was elected leader and the company carried a flag, made by Farnham's wife, that had the motto "Oregon or the Grave!" After the party split at Bent's Fort, they were led by Capt. Hall J. Kelly to Fort Davy Crockett at Brown's Hole on the Green River, and then traveled to Fort Hall and then on to Oregon. Farnham later traveled down into California where he took a ship home and wrote an account of his adventures.

Morse & Breese's North American Atlas was a landmark in American Cartography, being the first atlas to employ the cerographic printing process, which would revolutionize the map trade. The Morse family and this process are the subject of David Woodward's The All American Map. The maps were first printed in a series of inserts which appeared in the New York Post, and then later as a separate atlas.

An essential map for American Map collectors, illustrating an important change in the history of printed maps and the only truly American cartographic publishing innovation.