The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail 1852-1906

Indianapolis: By the author, [1906 - but later?]. Early reprint. Small octavo; red cloth over boards with photographic onlays; 254pp; illus; portrait frontispiece. Inconspicuous rubbing to board edges; foxing to prelims, previous owner's annotation inside front cover. Otherwise clean, tight and textually unmarked; solidly Very Good. The first edition was Omaha, 1906; this would appear to be an early reprint from the original plates. Printed by M.A. Donohue, Chicago, with their slug at base of copyright page. Illustrated from photographs; final 6pp (included in pagination) comprise an advertisement for Meeker's Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound (1905).

Mintz: "...an account of the author's trip across the plains at the age of twenty-two, and of the retracing of the trail in 1906 with an ox team at the age of seventy-six. The text is somewhat disjointed. However, the book is still interesting due to the heroic nature of the venture." Meeker actually published the book while in the midst of his1906 transcontinental expedition, peddling copies along the way to finance the venture. This reprint likely dates from the period February-March 1907, an interval during which Meeker was in Indianapolis peddling picture post-cards and copies of his book. MINTZ 330.