Mar 22, 2007 - Sale 2108

Sale 2108 - Lot 45

Price Realized: $ 18,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(CALIFORNIA.) Clayton, Sir William. A photographically-illustrated manuscript travel journal covering a trip from London to New York and overland to California. Approximately 230 pages, including photographs, newspaper clippings, trade cards, calling cards, tickets and other related material mounted within. 8vo, early leather with a title in gilt on the front cover "American Notes of Travel." Vp, 1871-72
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Additional Details

After crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Princess Helena, Sir William Clayton and his travelling companion arrive in New York at the end of October 1871. A brief stay in New York includes a dinner at the Union League Club and a meeting with Horace Greeley. The travellers next head to Niagara Falls by train and thence to Chicago by way of Buffalo and Pittsburgh. After a brief description of the fire ravaged city (page 57), the journey continues on to Omaha. That city and the "Yankees" on board the train are described in extremely unflattering detail. From Omaha, the train journey continues to Salt Lake City, where the travellers stay at the Townsend House. Several pages are devoted to Salt Lake, including a description of services at the Tabernacle (pages 74-78). Next, the travellers depart via Pullman car to San Francisco, where they arrive on 21 November 1871. Their stay in San Francisco includes visits to Cliff House, China Town and other sites, plus a trip outside the city to the Almaden Quicksilver mines. Clayton and his companion depart California for a return by ship via Panama (in all, their stay in California occupies pages 85-113). Besides descriptions of Panama, the travellers make stops at Jamaica, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans, returning to New York in February 1872.
Although the pointed and intelligent descriptions of the journey are valuable unto themselves, many of the "illustrations" are extraordinary. They include many photographs (including one of miners), trade cards from many of the hotels they stayed in or businesses visited, a handful of autographs (including Overton, Luis F. Emilio, William Douglas Douglas, and others), invitations, newspaper clippings and hand-drawn maps. The right hand side of the diary contains the journal and the left side the "memoranda."