Overland to California on the Southwest Trail, 1849. Diary of Robert Eccleston

Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1950 First edition. Quite scarce. One of 750 copies printed at The Westgate Press. Edited by George P. Hammond and Edward H. Howes. 256pp. Frontis, 2 folding maps. Rust cloth, gilt. A very fine copy with pictorial dust jacket (jacket spine slightly faded). An account of a 19 year old traveling from Texas to California in the year 1849. Eccleston was a New Yorker who joined a California company (the Frémont Association) that decided to go to Galveston, Texas by sea and then take the southwestern trail to California. Despite his youth, Eccleston was a keen observer and a compulsive recorder leaving us with a vivid picture of life on the trail. His journal was of special value for the historian because it established a new date for the opening of the Tucson cutoff to wagon traffic. "As the editors point out, the party charted new ground by opening wagon travel over the Tucson Cutoff or Apache Pass Trail. From Tucson, Eccleston and companions traveled with Texas Ranger Colonel Jack Hayes. They headed north to Maricopa Wells, followed the Gila route to Yuma, and crossed the Colorado Desert to a campsite on New River named (by Cave Johnson Couts) Camp Salvation. It was ninety-five miles from Warner's Ranch" (Kurutz). It has been noted that Eccleston's diary is the only one that has come to light describing 1849 travel on the trail. [Howes I: E-34; Howes II: E-34; Kurutz: 216]..