A Narrative of Voyages and Commercial Enterprises.

Cambridge: John Owen, 1842.

Price: $2,750.00


About the item

First edition. xvi, 249, [1]; viii, 240pp. 12mo. Contemporary half calf and marbled boards, black morocco lettering piece, rubbed. Some foxing. Cowan p. 131; Eberstadt 113-082; Graff 764; Hill 313; Howes C485; Lada-Mocarski 115; Sabin 13665; Streeter sale 2496; Wickersham 6661.

Item #346072

"In 1799 [Cleveland] visited the northwest coast, including Alaska, and in 1803 California ... [he] was at the Old Sitka site of the first Russian establishment the day following Baranov's making a deal with Katleut, a Sitkan chief, which enabled him to start building an outpost of the Russian-American Company on that spot" (Lada-Mocarski).

"An important source much used by Bancroft who characterizes it as: 'A most interesting and well written book.' Cleveland was an adventurer and Fur Trader of the old school. His voyages include the narrative of his four years’ expedition to the Northwest Coast, in the Brig, Carolina, 1799--1802, and the voyage of the Lelio Byrd to California in 1803--4. The former is especially valuable for its intimate account of the Indians and their country at this early period and the latter as one of but two known accounts of the Battle of San Diego, in which engagement Cleveland was all but blown out of the water and his ship badly damaged by the Spanish cannon" (Eberstadt).