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Description

One of the First American Maps of Texas

An important early map of Texas, depicting the entire territory, including present-day Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and one of the first maps of the area to identify the vast land grants awarded to the first settlers. Indian territories are also identified as are grounds of buffalo and wild cattle.

This map was issued in the anonymous Visit to Texas: Being the Journal of a Traveller . . . The text is a fresh and intriguing account of contemporary Texas, with "fine descriptions of natural scenery, prairies, some natural history, and … political conditions" (Clark).

''This anonymous work is one of the most important accounts of Texas during a critical period in its history'' (Jenkins).

Book Title: A Visit to Texas: Being the Journal of a Traveller through those Parts Most Interesting to American Settlers....  New York: Goodrich & Wiley, 1834, 264 pp., First edition.  16mo, modern full brown leather, gilt-lettered red calf spine label.   4 copper-engraved plates by J. T. Hammond (Mr. Neil's Estate near Brazoria; Lazzoing a Horse on the Prairie; Road Through a Cane Break; Shooting the Deer on the Prairie), folding engraved map by W. Hooker with original extensive shading and outlining in color:

First published in 1834, just one year after Mary Austin Holley's first book. The authorship of the book is unknown, but is generally attributed to an M. Fiske, a Col. Morris, or Asahel Langworthy (see Streeter 1130). The author had purchased land scrip from the infamous Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company prior to his visit in 1831. His stay in Texas included an illness, but he was attracted to the rural scene that was much of the environs of Texas at that time. Following his visit, he left Texas knowing that he had been cheated, that the Company could not convey land to him, a position which resulted in vitriolic attacks the Company in several places in the book.

Hooker's "Map of the State of Coahuila and Texas" also appeared in Mrs. Holley's 1833 book, "A Visit to Texas". The map takes its information from both David Burr's map of Texas and Stephen F. Austin's great map.

Condition Description
Folding Map detached from book for prior framing. Repaired tear in map. Right margin extended for framing.
Reference
Catalogue of the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana, #1336, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1968; U.S. Iana (1650-1950), T145, Howes, Wright, R.R. Bowker Company, New York, 1962; Streeter, Bibliography of Texas, 1155.