GILLELAND, J.C. The Ohio and Mississippi Pilot. Consisting of a set of Charts of those Rivers... With Directions for the use of Navigators. To Which is Added a Geography of the States and Territories, West and South of the Allegheny Mountains. Pittsburgh: R. Patterson & Lambdin, 1820.

2 parts in one, 12mo (182 x 103 mm). 16 maps (all but one full page). (Loss to lower edge of one plate not affecting text nor image, some spotting and toning.) Contemporary calf-backed boards (with later green morocco rebacking, some wear and minor worming). Provenance: David Swartzlander (ownership stamp); Dudley Bell Priester (1923-2017), Mississippi River collector and bibliographer (bookplate, sold Bloomsbury, 20 November 2009, lot 80).

FIRST EDITION of Gilleland's early western guide, with one of the earliest, albeit brief, descriptions of Cleveland. The first part includes directions and charts for navigating the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to its confluence with the Mississippi in Cario, Illinois. The second part has a separate title-page but continuous pagination. "Nine pages of this deal with the natural and political geography of Illinois" (Buck). While Howes, Sabin, Thomson and others claim the present work was based on Zadok Cramer's Navigator, Streeter's examination led him to declare that "Gilleland's observations were quite independent of Cramer's." Buck 158; Howes G-173; Sabin 27389; Streeter 1332; Thomson 447.

Property from the Collection of Perry B. Hansen