Piercy & Linforth’s Route From Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley – Volume with 30 Engraved Plates [Previously owned by Brigham Young’s family]

This historic volume is James Linforth & Frederick Piercy’s Route From Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley Illustrated with steel engravings and wood cuts from sketches made by Frederick Piercy…Together with a Geographical and Historical Description of Utah, and a Map of the Overland Routes to that Territory from the Missouri River. Also, an Authentic History of the Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration from Europe. The work was published in Liverpool by Franklin D. Richards and in London by Latter-Day Saints Book Depot in 1855.

The work includes a folding map, 30 engraved plates, and in text wood-cut illustrations. The illustrations are all after Frederick H. Percy. James Linforth edited the work. The volume is bound in contemporary half calf and tan cloth covered boards, rebacked. It is housed in a rec Morocco backed box.

This was one of the most important publications devoted to the Mormon emigration. It’s provenance includes members of the Brigham Young family. “This elaborately prepared and illustrated book was published as a monument to the Mormon emigration to Utah, and as a means of attracting further emigrants. Piercy made a special trip to America [in 1853] to make sketches for the plates, which are some of the best western views of the period.” (Streeter)

It included numerous illustrations of the Westward expansion including views of New Orleans, Natchez, St. Louis, Vicksburg, Nauvoo, Council Bluffs, Laramie, Fort Bridger, and Scott’s Bluff. “…One of the most elaborately and beautifully illustrated of western books.” (Howes) “…One of the basic sources of illustrated Western Americana of the period.” (Taft) “One of the most illuminating maps of the West to appear during 1855…it shows Utah in all its glory. This is not only an important map in the history of Mormons, but is in every sense an important map in the history of the West, giving as it does a carefully drawn picture of that entire area.” (Wheat)

Provenance: This copy inscribed by Brigham Young’s daughter Maria Young Dougall (1849-1935) to her niece Leah Dunford Widstoe and her husband, John A. Widstoe (1872-1952), a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It is additionally signed by prominent LDS Elder (and Maria Dougall’s husband) William Bernard Dougall (1843-1909).