May 27, 2020 Founders & Patriots
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/27/2020
Craig, Neville B., ed. "Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo." John S. Davidson, Pittsburgh, 1854. First American edition. Frontispiece (a large, folding map-plan of Fort DuQuesne), xii, 13-92pp. (pages numbered as published). Octavo, original blind-stamped salmon cloth with gilt title, spine missing, and frontispiece loose, otherwise a very good copy. First published in London, 1800, that edition (lacking map) and this 1854 second edition "were apparently printed from slightly different manuscript copies." Howes S-1015aa. Memoirs of a Scottish-born officer in George Washington’s Virginia Regiment during the French & Indian War. Following the surrender of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754, Stobo was held hostage by the French under terms of capitulation. While interned at Fort DuQuesne (present-day Pittsburgh), Stobo was caught smuggling letters out describing the French fortifications and troop strength and sent to prison at Quebec. He escaped to Louisbourg in 1758 and participated in the 1759 expedition against Quebec, where his intelligence of Quebec enabled General Wolfe to make an effective landing at the Plains of Abraham. 22 Decker 433. Haynes 17725. Howes 2430. Church 1291 [London ed.]. Graff 3992. Field 382. Sabin 91869.
[with:]
Craig, Neville B., ed. "THE OLDEN TIME: A Monthly Publication, devoted to the Preservation of Documents and other Authentic Information in relation to the Early Explorations and the Settlement and Improvement of the Country around the Head of the Ohio. in 1755." Pittsburgh: J. W. Cook, 1846. Large octavo, 1-240, 289-480, 1 folding plate; some wrappers loose, some soiling to wrappers, but generally clean and bright pages within. Volume 1 of the extremely rare, original edition of a two year-long periodical, published in monthly installments, missing three numbers (6, 11-12), with all but number 1 in their original wraps. Its editor-compiler, Neville B. Craig, was the son of Major Isaac Craig, who commanded the artillery of the Western Department at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War and later served as Deputy Quartermaster General,US Army from 1791-1799. These nine numbers contain a number of primary source accounts of native American relations, exploration, conflict and settlement of the Ohio River Valley, including McKinney’s Description of Fort DuQuesne in 1756, George Washington’s Journal of his first Campaign, Stobo’s Letters, Braddock’s Defeat, Colonel Armstrong’s Taking of Kittanning, Post’s Two Journals of Missions to Shawnees, Colonel Bouquet’s Expedition, Grant’s Defeat, The Journal of George Croghan, and Washington’s Journal of a Tour to the Ohio in 1770. Field 381. Larned 1769. Howes 2386. Thomson 893. 10 ITEMS. JLK