While cataloging the Ye Galleon Archive we ran across the pamphlet An account of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Californian Peninsula. This narrative of the native peoples of the peninsula of California was based on a work originally published by the Alsation Jesuit, Johann Jakob Baegert in 1773 as Nachrichten von der amerikanischen Halbinsel Californien : mit einem zweyfachen Anhang falscher Nachrichten. In 1863 parts of Baegert’s publication were translated by Charles Rae for the Smithsonian Institution’s Annual Report for 1863-1864.

One of the interesting features of this pamphlet is that it is bound with a printed cover and colored title page. The remainder of the interior appears to be the original Smithsonian Institution Annual Report removed from the original binding.

We have not been able to find any other examples of a special binding for this work. We know that Glenn Adams was clearly interested in, and spent his career, in publishing rare examples of Pacific Northwest History. Is this a template for a publication that he never produced, or is it an enhancement for his own collection? We will probably never know whether or not this is a unique binding.

As we inspected the item there were some obvious condition issues. The top right section of title page was torn. It looked like someone had been playing with the pamphlet. Did a child get a hold of it and paste down the page? Were we looking at a difficult repair?

After worrying about how we would fix this, there was an ah-ha moment. The pamphlet was purposely pasted down on the front and back pages as the text of the facing pages were from the preceding and following reports. Did someone else see this and make the same assumption that we had: that the pages should not be pasted and tried to fix the situation?

Thus, we are going to stabilize the paste-down and consider creating a box for the pamphlet. We will let you know what we come up for a storage solution and repair in a future post.

DLWA Call Number: F1246 .B14 1864
Worldcat: Link

• Title: An account of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Californian peninsula, as given by Jacob Baegert, a German Jesuit missionary, who lived there seventeen years during the second half of the last century.
• Author: Jacob Baegert
• Language: English
• Setting: book history, conservation

–DLW