Hooton, Charles:

$7,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

ST. LOUIS' ISLE, OR TEXIANA; WITH ADDTIONAL OBSERVATIONS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN CANADA. An account of the author's journey and short-lived residence in Galveston, Texas, in search of health. Hooton, an Englishman, had travelled to Texas, arriving in Galveston on March 29, 1841, but left shortly thereafter in December of the same year, returning to England by way of New Orleans, New York, and Toronto. Lured by promises of "the salubrity of the Texan paradise" and descriptions of Galveston as "the head-quarters of modern Texas in population, in commercial importance, in the civilization of its society, in religion, education, morals, and literature," Hooton found himself sorely disappointed upon his arrival. With the present work, he hoped to offer a "few chapters upon a country" which he "had the misfortune to visit." His aim, he explains, is to "persuade, through the influence of facts, any projecting Emigrants from following in the same fatal footsteps." Despite the changed political circumstances since his journey six years earlier - Texas had since been annexed by the United States in 1845 - Hooton expresses little hope that "Texas, under her new form of government, can offer the slightest atom of additional temptation to Northern Emigrants, to what was offered when the following pages were written." As he goes on to explain, "whatever alteration the form of government may have undergone...the climate has not changed along with it. There still remain the same sun

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