PBA Galleries

70pp. (12m) 14.8x10.8 cm (5¾x4¼”), cloth spine over stiff printed wrappers.

According to Ernest J. Wessen, this reprint is rarer than the first edition of 1860 published in Cleveland.  Brayton was stolen near his home in Ohio in 1825 and sold to the Pottawatomi, who took him to Michigan, where he lived among the Winnebago, Chippewa, and Sioux.  The latter took him west, where he was again sold, this time to the Snake, who adopted him into their tribe.  Brayton apparently lived among the Snake on the upper Missouri River, following them to California, where he remained some five years.  

He describes fighting the Blackfeet in Oregon as well as his extraordinary thirty-four years of wandering all over the West.  He finally reconciled himself to civilization, enlisted in the army in 1861, and was killed at Pittsburgh Landing in 1862.  "Extraordinary as the incidents appear, there is abundant proof of its entire truth" - Thomson.  "It is quite true that it would not have been possible for Brayton to have made some of the movements described among the tribes named.  On the other hand the critics have overlooked the fact that Brayton was taken at the age of seven and lived among the Indians for thirty-four years.  He could not read or write, and spoke English with some difficulty....There remains not the slightest doubt that Matthew was a Brayton, and his narrative is, in general, correct" - Wessen.  This account is sometimes attributed to John H.A. Bone, who may have assisted Brayton in setting forth the narrative.  A rare Indian captivity, not in Ayer or Field.