An Artist On The Overland Trail: The 1849 Diary and Sketches of James F. Wilkins ed. by John Francis McDermott (review)

Reviews 145 recently moved to prophesy a tradition of significant “Mormon poetry” begin­ ning with this book. At the very least, we can hope that Larson will work to fulfill his own promise as a kind of regionalist of the spirit (I mean regionalist with all of the concentration and limitation of powers the term implies). His subject is indeed limited; it is because he has sometimes looked closely at that subject that we value him; it is because he has looked narrowly and timidly that we hope for more. R o b er t P a ck Br o w n in g , Berkeley, California An Artist On The Overland Trail: The 1849 Diary and. Sketches of James F. Wilkins. Edited by John Francis McDermott. (San Marino, Calif.: The Hunt­ ington Library, 1968. 143 pages. $12.50.) James F. Wilkins was not content to remain a moderately successful portrait artist in St. Louis. Inspired by the success of contemporary panoramas, which were quite popular in mid-nineteenth century, he joined an ox-train for the California gold fields early in the spring of 1849. Some nine months later, armed with 200 sketches of the journey, he produced his huge “Moving Mirror of the Overland Trail,” which he hoped would bring him significant financial gain and professional recognition. It did neither to any lasting degree, and during the years to follow, Wilkins slipped into obscurity, and his panorama and most of the sketches disappeared. Had it not been for Dr. McDermott’s interest in trail diarists and gold rush panoramists and his careful historical detective work, it seems likely that Wilkins would have remained something of a mystery, and his contribu­ tions as a trail artist would have remained unknown. McDermott has con­ vincingly identified 50 sketches of Overland Trail scenes as a portion of those originally made by Wilkins. He has brought these together with Wilkins’ trail diary, biographical information, an extensive bibliography, and introductory details regarding his own investigations and indentification of the Wilkins materials. Wilkins was not a great artist of the West nor an outstanding diarist, but his sketches were the most extensive made of the Overland Trail up to that time and his diary entries add personal observations to other contemporary accounts of travel along the trail. Wilkins suffers too frequently from under identification and description. In some cases he edits his own journal too carefully, such as crossing out his amusing first reaction after the arduous trip west, that he wished “California had sunk into the ocean” before he had ever heard of it. 146 Western American Literature McDermott’s detailed annotations fill in some of the missing information, correct wrong dates, and identify landmarks too hastily noted by Wilkins. McDermott frequently supplements Wilkins’ brief entries with quotations from other, more imaginative journalists. Nowhere does Wilkins give enough of a hint about the men he traveled with, and the party still remains unknown. Perhaps one of the greatest omissions in the book is an adequate map to identify specific points mentioned by Wilkins. The map reproduced in the endpapers was originally published after Wilkins’ journey, and does not identify some of the places he mentions. A map designed especially to accompany Wilkins’ diary and sketches, with an indication where each sketch was made, would have been most helpful to the reader. Another helpful guide would have been plate numbers indicated at appropriate places in the text of the diary, so that illustrations and text could be accurately cor­ related. Without Dr. McDermott’s careful annotations and supporting quotations from other diarists, Wilkins’ journal would seem rather hollow. However, Wilkins’ personal reactions and comments, although sketchy, do provide an­ other facet of the journey to the gold fields. His fifty sketches are a valuable pictorial representation of the trail. This is a handsome book with good reproductions of the Wilkins’ sketches, and Dr. McDermott certainly deserves credit for his contributions to the information about the gold rush panoramas and the Overland Trail. K e n n e t h H u ffo r d , Arizona Pioneers’ Historical Society Sam Houston with the Cherokees 1829-1833. By Jack Gregory and Rennard Strickland. (Austin: University of Texas...