Page 133 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript Americana - Sale 2310 - April 16, 2013

297 ● (WISCONSIN.) Acts Passed at the First Session of the Legislative
Assembly of the Territory of Wisconsin. 88 pages. 4to, modern buckram; badly
cropped with loss of the bottom line on many pages, 3-page typescript list of the missing
lines bound in; signed twice on title page and once on last page by James Duane Doty.
Belmont, WI, [1836] [3,000/4,000]
FIRST EDITION. The first meeting of Wisconsin’s territorial legislature, which met on a
windswept prairie for six weeks and established the outlines of a government. During this early
period, the territory included all of present-day Minnesota and Iowa, as well as part of the
Dakotas. This official printing of the session was one of the first books published in Wisconsin.
It begins with the original act of Congress establishing the territory. The 42 acts which follow
include the foundation of a court system (#2), the establishment of the permanent capital at
Madison (#11) and an abortive university at Belmont (#36), the creation of several new
counties, and the authorization of numerous roads, banks, and bridges.
A participant later recalled the legislature’s first session: “Gov. Dodge called the legislature
together at Belmont, the last of October, 1836. Belmont was then unknown—it was not on
the map, and the inquiry was upon every tongue, ‘Where is Belmont?’ . . . They passed the
session on an open prairie where a collection of poor buildings had been hastily erected for their
accommodation; and this was Belmont”—Proceedings of the Wisconsin Editorial Association,
1869, page 56.
The original owner, James Duane Doty (1799-1865), was an important early Wisconsin
politician and founder of its capital city, Madison; he later represented the territory in Congress
and served as its second governor. Only one known at auction since the 1967 Streeter sale,
III:1926. McMurtrie, Wisconsin 9.
296 297
296 ● (WHALING.) Scammon, Charles M. The Marine Mammals of the North-
Western Coast of North America. 27 plates. 4to, publisher’s cloth, rebacked with
original backstrip laid down; minor to moderate foxing; early owner’s signature on title
page, small bookplate on front pastedown. San Francisco, CA, 1874 [700/1,000]
FIRST EDITION. Written by a veteran whaling captain, with a 91-page section on the
American whale fishery, and lithographic plates by Britton & Rey. “The classic work on whales
and seals along the Pacific coast. . . . The first edition is rare, as many copies were left unsold
and subsequently destroyed”—Hill 1530. Cowan 1933, page 570; Howes S136 (“b”).