Kaweah Commonwealth. Vol. 2, No. 20. (New Series).
by (CALIFORNIA: NEWSPAPER)
- Used
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Portland, Oregon, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Kaweah: Burnette G. Haskell, April 4, 1891. First edition. Bifolio (4 pp.; 16 1/4 x 11 inches). Minor wear to edges but a very good copy."Influenced by Grodlund and other prominent writers, a group of Bay Area residents, lead by the labor activists, organized the Kaweah Co-Operative Commonwealth (the Kaweah Colony). Its purpose was to patent the newly opened timbered resources of eastern Tulare County and use the timber as the basis for a new society. Eastern Tulare was largely inaccessible and thus of little interest to commercial timber interests. The participants applied for 53 patents covering 12,000 acres of land surrounding the forks of the Kaweah River. The Land Patent Office, suspicious of recent fraudulent patent activity in Humboldt County, was slow to process the claims. Assuming success, and perhaps encouraged by the land agents to move forward, the Kaweah Commonwealth was launched without the patents. Funds were not only raised by the participants as part of a buy-in, but also from national and European sources as well. Many of the members never lived at Kaweah, but active clubs supporting Kaweah existed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and New York. The colony was begun, and its principal undertaking, starting in 1886, was the construction of an 18 mile road over a four year period to access the standing timber resources. The plan was that the logs were to be cut, milled, and then hauled to market. In terms of daily life, the colony has its own medium of exchange, wherein all participants were paid, based upon the time devoted to Colony undertakings. The time credits could be exchanged for meals and goods at the Colony store. Recognizing that all labor was valuable, all work was credited at the same exchange rate.The Colony began at Arcady, up from Three Rivers. As most labor and resources were devoted to the road construction, few other prominent improvements were developed other than improvised road construction camps. The Colony received a death blow, when, at the same time that the road was completed in 1890, Congress created Sequoia National Park, with the surrounding lands dedicated to national forest. As the Land Office had never taken final action on the colonists land patents, their work was for naught. Their land claims were rejected and they were now trespassers, charged with stealing timber resources from the federal lands. By 1890, colony constructed buildings in Kaweah, including a hall for dining and meetings, a blacksmith shop, a print shop, a barn and a blacksmith shop. The post office still stands (although in a different location), and the colonist’s road was used by the Park Service for many years as the only road to the sequoia groves. Among other accomplishments, the colonists published a newspaper, the Kaweah Commonwealth (still published today.)By 1892, most of the Colony had disbanded. Its peak population is estimated at about 300 individuals, and membership peaked at 500" (W. W. Abbott).
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Details
- Bookseller
- Nat DesMarais Rare Books, ABAA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 75257
- Title
- Kaweah Commonwealth. Vol. 2, No. 20. (New Series).
- Author
- (CALIFORNIA: NEWSPAPER)
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Burnette G. Haskell
- Place of Publication
- Kaweah
- Date Published
- April 4, 1891
Terms of Sale
Nat DesMarais Rare Books, ABAA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Nat DesMarais Rare Books, ABAA
Biblio member since 2012
Portland, Oregon
About Nat DesMarais Rare Books, ABAA
Nat DesMarais Rare Books specializes in books on the Sierra Nevada (particularly Yosemite), the Mojave, and California books in general. We also deal in the art of the American West, voyages and travels and nineteenth century literature.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- G
- Good describes the average used and worn book that has all pages or leaves present. Any defects must be noted. (as defined by AB...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...