1278 pp. 5¾x3¾, original embossed leather with traces of gilt lettering on the front cover.
Presentation inscription on front free endpaper, "Presented to William Dean by Majors, Russell & Waddell, Fort Bridger, U.T., Dec. 15, 1858." This is one of the Bibles given to employees by the firm of Majors, Russell & Waddle, freighters in the Transmississippi West and creators of the fabled but short-lived Pony Express. Alexander Majors, one of the proprietors (along with William H. Russell and William Bradford Waddell), had early in his freighting business adopted the practice of observing the Sabbath as a day of rest, and subsequently presented to each of his employees a Bible. Each Bible was imprinted in gold letters: "Presented by Russell, Majors & Waddell - 1858." In 1860, when establishing the Pony Express, each rider was presented with his own copy of a Bible using up a stock of the specially bound copies Majors had ordered for his company's wagon-train crews. Though it seems that the present Bible was one presented to a freighter, they were the same as those given to riders, and in fact, the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, has a freighter Bible, not a rider Bible. A listing of known riders issued by the Pony Express Museum has no William Dean, but there is a Louis Dean. The lettering on the front cover of the present copy has been all but rubbed off, but it is clear it was originally the presentation lettering.
Condition:
Covers well scuffed and worn, leather torn at spine head, ½" diameter hole in spine; newsclipping about Majors from 1928 affixed to front pastedown, hinges split withing with some signatures sprung, just good, sold as is, but a rare artifact from the era of the settlement of the American West.