Content:
These notes about mountain ranges of the American West might have contributed to "America's Back-Bone," which appeared in
Specimen Days & Collect
(1882-1883).
This manuscript was probably created after September
1879, when Whitman traveled to Denver, CO. The verso is a tax bill for someone else dated 1854. Edward Grier and Fredson
Bowers theorize that Whitman came upon a large collection of obsolete
forms when he started as an editor at the
Brooklyn Daily Times
in 1857. He used the
forms as notepaper for many years.
