Some years ago the author of this book was enabled to gratify an
ambition to record in artistic form something of the scenes and
something of the incidents of the memorable pilgrimage, The Westward
March, from the once borders of civilization to the Great American
Desert--"An Old Sketch Book," Boston. S. E. Cassino, 1892. His purpose
was not to publish a guide-book to the plains and mountains, for which
there has been no occasion within the present generation, but rather a
summary, a poetic-prose narrative of a typical journey, as seen
through the memory and devoid of commonplaces, the more salient
features only looming through the past.
When the Jubilee Celebration of the strange journey--for it is that,
and those who made it that we are this year honoring and
commemorating--was decided upon, it was suggested in consideration of
the singular fitness of "An Old Sketch-Book" as a souvenir to be
presented during the Jubilee to the Pioneers yet living, that letters
were addressed to the Pioneer Jubilee Celebration Commission that
speak for themselves. Many of the names appended to the letters were
recognized as belonging to the honored band of Pioneer men and women,
while the others were of those who think that in this Jubilee Year
those who crossed the plains and mountains in ox-teams would
appreciate the receiving, and their descendants the giving of a work
of this character.
"An Old Sketch-Book," however, was a large and costly volume of a
limited edition, and hardly manageable for the present purpose. The
author therefore decided to place the sketches and descriptive matter
in the form now used, under the title of "The Old Journey." The
prompting to undertake the work was not merely encouraging but was
made almost a duty by the commendations of the original volume, and
had there been no other result from his labors, the author would have
felt fully repaid for them by the expressions of approbation from the
press as well as from those who saw the birth of the State and who
watched its growth to the present hour.
The author is one of those who "crossed the plains." As the years have
gone and time has not only cast a sort of glamor over the event, but
has given also to men an opportunity to reflect seriously and in
calmness and intelligence, that same Journey assumes greatness in our
eyes, both in its inception and in its achievement. It finds a
prominent place in the History of the West, and will ever stand forth
among events. Indeed the world had heretofore seen nothing like it,
and in the very nature of things its repetition is improbable, if not
impossible. It must now be read; it cannot be experienced.
In presenting this edition there are no excuses to offer. The author
has been true to nature and to history, and the publishers have done
their part in a manner that must excite wonder and commendation when
one thinks of what has been achieved in the wilderness, the advance
that has been made in the art of the printer within the few years that
have elapsed since the sketches appearing in the book were made.
It hardly needs intuition to foretell success for this little volume.
BYRON GROO.
May, 1897.
"Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.
Where the gorge, like a gate way,
Opens a passage wide to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon."