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Valencia, 2014. 4to.; 210 pp. Cubiertas originales.
Valencia, "...la fonte que mana e corre...", 1955. 4to. menor; 156 pp., 2 hs. Edición limitada y numerada de 245 ejemplares no venales, impresos sobre papel de hilo. Cubiertas originales.
1850réf. BK0017Sacramento City California 1850. Autograph letter signed "Sam'l Locke" to his wife in Belfast Maine. 6 pp. Stampless folded letter with clear circular "SACRAMENTO CITY / CAL." postmark and "40" rate handstamp; manuscript notation recording receipt in Maine on December 19 1850. Light soiling; very good. A bleak California Gold Rush letter written during the 1850 Sacramento cholera epidemic by Samuel Locke a Maine emigrant suffering from prolonged fever and unable to regain his strength. Surrounded by sickness failed mining ventures violent crime and men too poor or ill to return home Locke plans to seek recovery in the Sandwich Islands while relying upon his religious faith for consolation. Locke had been ill since August and was now so weak that ordinary work exhausted him: "My limbs or legs are very weak short breath and no appetite at all. I have no desire to eat anything not one thing I can think of. I have no strength to go into any business or to do any. I do a few little chores round or about the store occasionally but to sweep the store it beats me all out . O how I long to get out of this place. Can't get any strength don't know as I can anywhere but I long to try." Friends advised him to spend the winter in the Sandwich Islands. He expected to travel first to San Francisco and then make the fifteen- to twenty-day passage to Hawaii though he feared that continued illness might leave him unable either to support himself there or return to Maine. He states that he will "trust in providence yes trust in God who I feel is my only refuge". Locke gives a grim account of California's climate and the spread of cholera through Sacramento claiming that the climate in California prevented the sick from recovering their strength as the "air is very light & bad middle of the day very hot and nights very cool." The previous week's report had stated forty dead but "nothing near all the cases were reported" with Locke himself knowing of several unreported cases personally. A local blacksmith died overnight after his companions borrowed Locke's syringe and "We can hardly see a healthy looking individual in the streets." The letter also records the uncertain fortunes of men from Locke's home region scattered through the mines. William Beckett and his partners had spent the summer constructing a mining dam had struck gold on the first day and then immediately "the dam was washed away so they lost all their summer's labor." Other acquaintances had moved to Kelsey's Bar the southern mines or Oregon or were preparing to return east by way of Panama. Some remained convinced that California would reward perseverance while others had "seen enough" after accomplishing nothing. Locke regarded success as largely accidental: "Thousands are here and in the mines who want to get home and cannot-not able to do seamen's duty and no money to pay but they have got to stay in the mines and do the best they can. Some it is true have been lucky. It is all luck. If they happen to hit a good place they do well." News that cholera had entered the mining districts increased his alarm. Locke feared especially for men living in tents as the rainy season approached with poor food and little protection from exposure. Sacramento itself was marked by nightly violence: "There are murders or robberies about every night. One man killed in front of our house a few nights ago. We heard him holler and heard the blows. Next morning he died. His head was dreadfully mangled." Locke closes with an emotional message to his wife and children. His health finances and prospects all appeared uncertain and he repeatedly asked his family and church to pray for him: "Tell the dear Children to be good and if they never see me again when I am gone they will have the satisfaction . of knowing they acted as thy Father requested . Pray for me ask the Church to pray for me indeed I know I have your prayers and you have mine often." A particularly bleak account of the human cost of the California Gold Rush documenting epidemic disease physical collapse failed mining schemes violent crime religious faith and the predicament of emigrants unable to escape California after their health and resources were exhausted. . unknown
1851réf. List3716Panama City Panama 1851. Single three-page letter measuring appx. 8 x 10 inches. Stampless cover marked "STEAMSHIP" and circled rate marking "40. Folded with some small tears and fading at folds some stains with tear at seal overall bright and legible; excellent. A letter from Henry Francis Douglass 1826-1897 while on his way to the California gold mines sent to his wife Lydia Lillibridge 1828-1904 in Voluntown Connecticut. The letter is highlighted by Douglass' description of Panama City including a brutal execution that he witnessed there: "of all the wickedest places that I ever saw this is the worst there is robery evry day most and murders I keep myself clost nights last night there was a lady on the other side of the street robed of her watch worth $100 and seventy dollars I saw while seting on the piaser piazza to the house. about fifteen minets ago two black men were brout out of the prison by the soldiers dresed in white acompaned by a cathalic prest led up to the stakes the preist sat down on a stool the murders kneeled down to prests throde the cloaks over ther heads and whispered to parden there sins then they was each one tied to the stake while forteen native soldier shot them one strugld but they shot him over again such site I never saw before but it was two good for them they was two of the five that murderd the ten on shagres Chagres river men women and chrilden". The murder for which the men were executed had occurred around the end of February 1851. Eleven people Americans and Europeans transiting the Isthmus were killed: six men three women and two children. Contemporaneous newspaper reporting described the murderers as "Carthagenians negroes and half-breed Indians who hate the whites."1 The gold rush in California had caused a massive influx of people and money to Panama and with it an increase in crime and racial tension. Douglass had arrived in Chagres and traveled to Gorgona which Douglass renders "gorgoney" via the Chagres River then overland to Panama City the typical route before the construction of railroads or the canal. Chagres is "the most sunken place that I ever saw all kinds of bisness carred on that anyon could think of" and the route is "very Dangers at this time" "very wet" and plagued by lice disease and seasickness. However he reports encountering "a lot just returning from the mines with good nuse" and felt "in couraged to go on". Douglass mined in California for two years before returning to his family.2 Of interest to historians of Panama in the California Gold Rush and of social conditions there especially crime and punishment before the construction of the railroads and canal. 1 "Murders on the Isthmus" The Brandon Post April 3 1851 2. 2 Charles Henry James Douglas A collection of family records with biographical sketches and other memoranda of various families and individuals bearing the name Douglas or allied to families of that name E.L. Freeman & Co. 1879.
1853réf. BK0069Glasgow Scotland 1853. Autograph letter signed for John & Robert Tennent by G. R. Tennent to D. Gibb & Co. San Francisco. Received by the steamer Winfield Scott September 20 1853. 1 p. 8 ½ x 10 ½ inches. Light wear; very good. A Gold Rush commercial letter documenting the movement and valuation of California gold within the transatlantic financial system. Writing from Glasgow to the San Francisco firm of D. Gibb & Co. John & Robert Tennent acknowledge a remittance of gold dust valued at $5092 and explain why the transaction produced a poorer return than a conventional bill of exchange. The specie had been sold in London for £1001 12s. 6d. The firm then added sixty days' interest and deducted marine insurance in order to compare the net proceeds with the value of a draft. Their calculation left a balance of £15 18s. 6d. in their favor which they instructed the California merchants to include in their next remittance: "Referring to your remittance of gold dust we regret to inform you that as it was unauthorized on our part we presume that you cannot object to our placing the proceeds to your Credit under deduction of the difference between such proceeds and a remittance by Bill." The letter also records £174 9s. 7d. in freight payable at San Francisco on goods shipped aboard the Kate and refers to an enclosed summary of exports sent to California during the month of July. A concise but useful account of the practical economics of Gold Rush remittances showing the comparison between specie and bills of exchange together with the costs of interest insurance freight and transatlantic shipment. . unknown
1850réf. List1315Britton and Rey 1850. Single sheet measuring 8 ¼ x 10 ¾ inches on blue wove paper. Small chip to corner not affecting image some older tape repairs verso at margins else fine very good plus overall and quite attractive. Very Good. A series of four illustrations telling the story of a mining party that heads out with a pack mule only to fail to find gold and lose their mule before returning to a new prospect with their clothes in shambles. This is entry 209 in Baird’s California’s Pictorial Letter Sheets in which he sets the publication date as being prior to 1855. The series possibly illustrates scenes from a song. A particularly fine example on the classic blue wove paper of the period. unknown
1859réf. 44772Weaverville CA 1859. Very good minor creasing along edges and folds minor soiling contents clean. 1 pp. Bifolium. 5 x 8 inches. March 24th 1859. Gold Rush era letter from John Hobart to Trinity County Clerk J.A.Watson resigning from his post in Weaverville California . "I will be obliged to you to tender in my resignation as Road overseer for Rattlesnake Creek Road District to the Board of Supervisors when next they meet as I am doubtfull that circumstance will keep me in that section of the County throughout the summer." Weaverville California founded in 1850 was a Gold Rush town and once had a population of nearly 2500 Chinese goldminers. In 1855 the Weaverville Trinity Times called attention " the large and rapidly increasing number of Chinese among us.crowding themselves into every vacant spot they can find." unknown
1849réf. 49949New York. January 29 1849. Life Insurance for a Forty-Niner Who Went West with John Woodhouse Audubon An intriguing note regarding life insurance for a forty-niner traveling to California in 1849 with Henry Webb and John Woodhouse Audubon. The note reads: "Langdon H. Havens wants a life insurance permit for California to go over the Overland Route in company with persons bearing dispatches from our Government in a Company of 100 or more. He wants to leave for Washington immediately." Perhaps the twenty-six-year-old Haven sometimes spelled Havens originally intended to join a safe government-sponsored expedition from Washington but he was in fact among the 100 Forty-Niners who embarked on a famously ill-fated overland expedition led by Army Colonel Henry Webb with John Woodhouse Audubon son of the famous ornithologist as his second in command which left New York on February 8. The company proceeded by ship train stagecoach and riverboat to New Orleans and from there by steamer across the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Rio Grande where they arrived on March 13 - an odd overland route dictated by Webb a veteran of the Mexican-American War. There disaster struck. A dozen men died of cholera the company's money was stolen and leadership conflict led Webb to leave the company with a dozen followers. Some of the remaining stalwarts including Haven followed Audubon onward trekking for seven months through Mexico and Arizona the survivors finally reaching San Diego in November. Some then took a boat to San Francisco; others continued overland to the gold fields. As meticulously recorded by Audubon a naturalist and painter in his own right the entire venture has gone down in history as "one of the most poorly-planned" Forty-Niner expeditions "on record." Haven though nearly dying en route was one of the fortunate few who "made it to California." An appealing note dated in the famous year of the California Gold Rush that eerily anticipates the dangers inherent in overland travel in America in the 19th century. Mailing folds slight edge discoloration else fine. unknown
1850réf. 6357San Francisco: August 29 1850. Very good. 3pp. on a folded folio sheet. Old folds some light wear and soiling. Letter from a disillusioned painter living in San Francisco to his family back home in New Bedford Massachusetts. Currently in San Francisco proper Allen finds the town quite disagreeable with fog and wind and very little work. He writes that he isn't working at present because his employer will only pay him $8 a day which "won't do." He says "I will sooner go to the mines again. I have been a haveing 10 dollars and that is little enough for to be obliged to stay in this place for it is not only sickly but very disagreeable other ways." He's had little success in his job hunt with a glut of painters in town. "I have been looking around to see if I could find a job on my own account. I got the promise of several & one steamboat to paint and am in hopes of getting them but a man's word is not worth much in California for if he promises you a job today he will employ some one else tomorrow." He notes that he will go back to the mines in the winter: "Men enjoy much better health in the mines than do in this place as a general thing but mining is rather uncertain though I am determined to give it a good try this winter and then quit the country that is to say this section of it." He complains about a lack of correspondence and closes with a statement about the terrible plague of fleas he is currently suffering. A candid and grim look at life in San Francisco in 1850. August 29 unknown
1853réf. 4788Elk Hill Ca: December 17 1853. Very good. 3pp. on a folded folio sheet. Old folds light wear and soiling. With original mailing envelope. An informative letter sent from a miner in Gold Rush-era California to a friend in Tuolumne County primarily concerning a mining claim but also providing many interesting local details. The author writes "I managed to keep a claim for you which is joining to mine in this way it is one that my partner sold to a speculator who laid a land warrant on it." He discusses the process of the land warrants and how he made the man title the claim properly in San Francisco. "This claim was jumped last summer by W.H. Dixon first sheriff of Trinity City who died the day before he intended to occupy the house he built on the claim. He shot himself accidentally and never spoke." The author immediately stepped in and nabbed it for his friend but it was short-lived. "The claim is cheap at $2000 as soon as I made it known that I should not administer it was jumped by 3 in one day before 9 o'clock. So much for your not coming as I told you I could not keep them off any longer and you would not come if I had." He further mentions that he is digging potatoes which he deems the finest in the world discusses issues with the crop and further talks about new arrivals in the area. December 17 unknown
1852réf. 4789Mokilomni Hill Ca: April 3 1852. Very good. 2pp. plus integral address leaf. Quarto on a folded folio sheet. Old fold lines minor wear. In a highly legible script. An interesting letter from a disillusioned fortune-seeker in Calaveras County advising his father not to come west as all the easy pickings are gone. He writes "Times are pretty dull here now and as I have been doing nothing for the last two weeks I am getting rather sick of the place. I should leave today but there are some holes going down by some acquaintance of mine & I want to see if they get anything. If they do I shall sink one myself they go from 50 to 60 feet & as they are in a good looking place I have some curiosity to know whether they strike anything or not. If I leave this place I think I shall go south as I hear they have struck some deep diggings in the vicinity of Sonora & think I shall go down that way. I see by the papers that a great many are coming to the country from Boston. I do not know what they all will do here it is not the place here it was two years ago & those who start with the anticipation of finding money easily got here will be badly mistaken. April 3 unknown
1855réf. 4791Grass Valley Ca: September 17 1855. Very good. 4pp. on a folded folio sheet. Old fold lines minor wear. An intimate letter from a gold seeker in Nevada County California. Theodore Shaw writes to his wife about mixed luck in California a terrible fire his concern for their children and his great anxiety about the future. He writes in part: "I have property here that is worth at least $1000 but not a cent in my pocket but we expect to start up to our quartz ledge the day after tomorrow if nothing prevents to errect a mill up there. And now our plans have been nearly frustrated by a most dreadful fire such as I never witnessed. On Thursday last about 11 o'clock p.m. an alarm of fire was heard and by about half past 12 some 350 stores dwellings and buildings were consumed with a large portion of their contents our hotel included. . The entire business part of the town is in ruins.we have been sleeping under an old shed in the suburbs. This fire has injured us in this way several who had taken stock in our company have lost their means still we intend going on in a smaller way. We had formed a company with a Capital Stock of $50000 divided into 50 shares of $1000 each. Do you know Lydia I have more anxiety about your health than anything else as I know you work hard; only think what would happen to our dear children if anything serious should happen to your health and I away here in California. September 17 unknown
1852réf. 2473San Francisco: October 4 1852. Very good. 2pp. with integral address leaf. Old folds mild staining and soiling three-inch closed tear to address leaf. An interesting letter documenting the family side of the California Gold Rush in which a San Francisco man writes to his brother offering to send his wife and daughters to Placerville as helpers. Interestingly at first Phillips addresses the letter to his brother in Ohio then scratches it out and writes in "Cal;" this most likely indicates the Phillipses hailed from Ohio and trekked to California along with scores of others in hopes of untold riches in the California gold fields. In his letter Phillips writes that his wife who has long been in San Francisco looking after a sick friend can now leave as he is better "And if you think best she will come up with the little girls and fix your carpets and superintend your affairs for a month or two untill your wife comes." The formerly sick friend Mr. Gardner could also accompany them apparently as "He is coming up to P. and he wants you to give him work for a short time. Mr. G. is a good sailsman sic having been in the dry goods business." While not overtly concerned with gold mining the correspondence is nevertheless interesting for providing details on family routines during the Gold Rush era when numerous families uprooted their lives and moved not only to places like San Francisco and Placerville but between such locations during the years of speculation. A nice example of history from below particularly notable for its domestic implications during the time of the great California Gold Rush. October 4 unknown
1849réf. BK0018Ferrisburgh Vermont 1849. Autograph letter signed "Anne R. M." to her husband Lloyd Minturn in San Francisco "Upper California." 8 pp.; approximately 1700 words. With stampless cover bearing a black "NEW-YORK / 40" datestamp of January 17 and manuscript routing "per Cherokee. Significant edge wear and central vertical crease; text generally clear and complete. An intimate Christmas letter from Anna Robinson Minturn of Ferrisburgh Vermont to her husband Lloyd then engaged in the hotel and real estate business at Pueblo San José during the California Gold Rush. Writing on the anniversary of his departure Anna describes the four-month-old son Lloyd had never seen questions whether California's speculative "mania" could last and repeatedly urges him to return home. Lloyd Minturn had traveled to California in January 1849 with David Lion Gardiner and other eastern emigrants. By November Gardiner reported that Minturn was "at Pueblo San Jose keeping a hotel and speculating in real estate."1 Anna's references to Lloyd's hotel and stables their rental and the uncertain recovery of his investment relate directly to his California business. He later appears in San Francisco as a member of the Committee of Vigilance of 1851 with his place of business on California Street and his residence at the Mansion House.2 Anna begins writing late on Christmas day imagining a future holiday spent with Lloyd "by thy quiet fire-side in Vermont-with thy wife and darling child with thee." Returning to the letter three days later she reflects on the year since his departure: "Oh how much I think about thee as the anniversary of thy departure comes round . When I think of thee my dearest ask then what a weary dreary time it seems . Our little darling improves so rapidly is so very lovely that I can hardly bear to have thee away." News that another California emigrant Dr. Stone had returned safely made Lloyd's absence still more painful. Although she understood that "the object of thy pilgrimage" at last appeared attainable Anna wondered why the management of his property could not be entrusted to an agent asking why "Mr. Ruckle" cannot "receive the rents & pay the former owner and send thee thy portion of the profits." However she immediately checks her own advice with an observation on marriage and gender: "You men know so much more how these things work than we so that it is rather labor wasted to advise much and I do hate to see a woman trying to rule her husband-don't thee" Anna feared that Lloyd might remain away sacrificing his domestic life only to lose the anticipated reward. Her skepticism extends to the Gold Rush itself: "I do hope though that the man who has taken your property will be able to pay you-that would be so bad to stay away so long-sacrificing so much & lose thy reward entirely-don't thee suppose this mania in California will end much as the land speculation did here seems to me it must. I hope thee won't get drawn in." Much of the letter is devoted to their infant son whose birth Lloyd may initially have learned of from another returning emigrant because of the "shamefully neglected" Pacific mails. At four months the boy weighed eighteen and one-quarter pounds and had "cheeks as hard as little apples." Anna encloses a lock of his hair explaining that she had kissed it before sending it. The contrast between California and the Vermont household runs throughout the letter. Anna describes the snow distant mountains sleighing baked apples and buckwheat cakes while Lloyd remains in a place known to her mainly through contradictory reports and unreliable correspondence. She cites Bayard Taylor's account of portions of California as suitable wheat country while noting that other observers claimed wheat could not be grown there at all remarking on the "contradictory accounts about California" that make it hard to "tell what to believe." Her anxiety was heightened by reports of cholera progressing toward California. She closes by asking Lloyd to protect his health and praying that he might be restored to her "in sound health both body & soul." Anna was a daughter of Rowland Thomas and Rachel Robinson of Rokeby the prominent Ferrisburgh Quaker family whose home later became known for its role in the Underground Railroad. Other letters from Anna to Lloyd during his California absence survive at the Bancroft Library and the Smithsonian.3 Overall a substantial and affecting account of the Gold Rush from the perspective of a wife left behind. 1 David Lion Gardner Letter to Juliana McLachlan Gardiner November 30 1849 David Gardiner Letters BANC MSS 2006/127 box 1.The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley. 2 Anna Robinson Minturn Letters to Lloyd Minturn 1849-1851 Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Steamboats box 1 folder 6 J-L Archives Center National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution Washington DC. 3 Anna R. Minturn "Anna R. Minturn to Mr. Lloyd Minturn Ferrisburgh December 2 1849" California Gold Rush Letters BANC MSS C-B 547 box 5 The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley. . unknown
1853réf. 46036Columbia Ca.: Gazette Print 1853. The Laws of the Diggings A rare broadside printing of the laws of the Columbia Mining District in California in 1853 created and enforced by the miners for their own self-government. The seventeen articles all deal with regulations for mining and claims. The first nine set out rules for making and operating claims. The next three address foreign ownership of claims. Article 10: "None but Americans and Europeans who have or shall declare their intentions of becoming citizens shall hold claims in this district." Article 11: "Neither Asiatics nor South Sea Islanders shall be allowed to mine in this district either for themselves or for others." Article 12 sets out a punishment for any miner who sells a claim to an Asian or a Polynesian. The final five articles set out rules for enforcing the laws including the creation of a Miners Committee and a system of binding arbitration. According to the text the laws were adopted "at a meeting of the Miners of the Columbia Mining District held Oct. 1st 1853." and the laws are signed in print by "C.H. Chamberlain Pres." and "R.A. Robinson Sec'y." "The item is of basic importance.as an example of how the California miners - or men beyond the reach of government anywhere else in our States and Territories for that matter - banded together and enacted and enforced codes of law for their own protection" - Eberstadt. The COLUMBIA GAZETTE which printed this broadside was according to Kemble the second newspaper to operate in Columbia starting operations in the fall of 1852. The first newspaper in the area the COLUMBIA STAR apparently printed only two or three issues in October-November of 1851 before the printing press was destroyed by vandals. Greenwood locates only three copies at the California Historical Society and the Bancroft Library and the Streeter copy which was sold at the Clifford sale in 1994. Rocq lists a copy at the Huntington Library. OCLC adds copies at Yale Library of Congress University of California at San Diego Stanford and DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University. A rare and interesting example of the search for order in the tumult of the gold rush. The Streeter copy sold to Howell for $550 in 1968. It later reappeared in the sale of California collector Henry Clifford in 1994. Broadside 10¾ x 8 inches. Printed in three columns. A bit of light foxing mostly in margins. Near fine. In a folding cloth clamshell case spine gilt. GREENWOOD 381. ROCQ 15427. EBERSTADT 131:105. STREETER SALE 2735. CLIFFORD SALE 26. OCLC 29876358. hardcover
1849réf. 5043Paris: Typ. Schneider Rue d'Erfurth 1 1849. Very good. Broadside approximately 18 x 13 inches. Matted and framed. A pair of short closed tears repaired at lower edge. Even toning and light creasing. Contemporary manuscript annotation under caption title. A wonderful illustrated faux news broadside published in Paris as gold fever coursed through Europe in 1849. The headline promises "nouveaux détails" of the gold mines in California but the text is in fact a humorous description and light-hearted admonishment of the multitudes thoughtlessly giving up their livelihoods for the hardscrabble life of a gold digger in the California wilderness. The first section runs through a litany of types who are abandoning their lives for adventure and advises them not to consider the difficulties of the journey: "En route pour les mines d'or de la Californie! Partez! Il n'est pas néccessaire que vous preniez de lourds baggages : une cassette et une bonne pioche vous suffriont. Ne vous laissez pas décourager par la peur d'une navigation de cinq mois. elle sera peut-être périlleuse. mais le résultat est si consolant : de l'or!. toujours de l'or!. Qu'importent la colique et les fièvres doublées d'un mal de mer brutal. de l'or!. toujours de l'or!. Qu'importe d'être noir ou jaune en mourant du moment qu'on se repose dans un linceul d'or pour l'éternité! Partez!" The remainder of the text somewhat sardonically describes life in California and warns prospective travelers not long for the comforts of home but rather to concentrate on their sought-after riches: "Par example ne vous attendez pas à jouir de toutes les douceurs de la vie. Vous n'y trouverez ni biftecks au beurre d'anchois ni dinde truffées; car les aliments y sont rares. Mais les racines y sont en grande abondance. Vous vivrez un peu à la manière des anachorètes pour un temps. seulement vous déterrerez de l'or. ce qu'ils ne faisaient pas que l'on sache." The illustration which occupies approximately the top third of the broadside depicts men and women from all walks of life carrying pickaxes on their shoulders and racing for a ship about to depart. The image carries the printed signature of "B. Netter;" a contemporary manuscript note under the caption identifies the publication date as February 17 1849. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France estimates that as many as 40000 French men and women made their way to California between 1848 and 1856. The present broadside is an excellent document of California gold fever in France and the pervasive interest in gold rush news in Europe during the mid-19th century. Rare we locate just four copies at Berkeley UCSD California Historical Society and the BNF. Typ. Schneider, Rue d'Erfurth, 1 unknown
1895réf. 53540Chicago & New York: Rand McNally & Co. 1895. 8vo. 333 1 pp. Red linen decorated & lettered in gilt on front cover gilt lettering on spine t.e.g. minor rubbing minor soiling to spine slightly cocked still VG- copy. First American edition of this curious Henty title first published in book form in England by Chatto & Windus 1894 of this curious mystery of mystery and kidnapping of one of two twin girls used to inflict pain upon the father and the twin sister. The mystery is resolved by the young hero in the last half of the book in the gold camps above Sacramento CA. Rand, McNally & Co., unknown
1871réf. 67574New York: Currier & Ives 1871. Attractive Gold Rush Print by Currier & Ives A fine handcolored lithograph by Currier & Ives depicting placer miners in California during the Gold Rush. In the foreground two men are shown shoveling sediment into a Long Tom capped with a sluice box while another man scoops up the remainder and deposits it into a rocker box. Behind them another trio work hard rock with pickaxes and a high-pressure hose. A small mining camp can be seen in the distance with a group of redwood stumps as evidence of their construction activities. Number eleven in the New Best 50 Currier & Ives prints. Not in Peters. Light tanning and soiling small chip to upper right corner. Very good. Matted. CONNINGHAM 2412. CURRIER & IVES CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ 2622. unknown
1850réf. List1929California 1850. With thirteen letters most multi-page written from Monterey in 1850 a 7 pp facsimile transcription of a 1834 Mexican land grant on cloth measuring 11 x 14 inches and and eleven page document on paper in Spanish relating to a Monterey land grant transcribing an 1841 document. Letters heavily worn with some loss at margins but mostly legible land grant in good to very good condition transcribed document in Spanish in fair condition with water damage to margins. Fair. An interesting archive of 1850s-era material relating to the life and career of the surveyor Edward Williams which recently surfaced in the central mother lode region. The group includes his personal letters from the California Gold Rush as well as well two interesting documents form his work for the Surveyor General J.W. Mandeville in 1858 where he transcribed two Mexican land grants. Lt. Edward Williams was a member of Company E New York Volunteers under Capt. Nelson Taylor. He came to California around 1847 and found employment as a deputy surveyor later working for the Office of the Surveyor General of the Unites States for California. In 1858 Surveyor General J.W. Mandeville commissioned a report on Mexican-era California Land Grants. Mandeville had Williams copy the original documents exactly - inclusive of an ink copy on linen that is an "exact tracing" of the original documents starting with 1834 up through about 1840. These "copies" were submitted to the Surveyor General in 1858 for use in the report. Williams continued the title work by copying other documents from about 1841 though this time not as a tracing but hand copied on the usual blue paper of the 1850s. The documents illustrate the length officials went to while they investigated Mexican Land Grant titles to California properties in the 1850s. The process was difficult and involved two distinctly separate cultures and legal systems that clearly conflicted. The Mexican Government granted rights for these large land parcels in California to various people but clearly stated they could not sell parts of the property. The wording was used many times in litigation of the period in both defense of the land grants and in opposition to how the land grants were handled. The issues were actually quite simple in that the Mexican legal standards for land grants was far different from those in the United States and the two differing forms of written land ownership and use clashed. These documents reflect a parcel of land granted to Francisco Mesa at "Corral de Tierra" a large parcel in Monterrey County California. Mesa had requested land for "his personal use and that of his family." In the Grant the title papers reflect "while the land is under Francisco's possession it cannot be divided mortgaged or a levy placed on it nor handed down." These original documents help illustrate the complex story of Mexican Land Grants in California. Also included are thirteen letters from Ed aka "Ned" to various family members primarily his mother and sister Alice and vice versa. About half are from Ed the other half are written to him. The dates of the letters are; 1850: February 10th April 15th April 16th April 28th June 10th July 30th October 11th and November 17th and 1851: September 9th. One undated letter with heavy loss is written from Panama. The letters are generally readable but the condition far from perfect with water stains throughout and chips abundant along edges and significant textual loss. The letters are generally at least two pages sometimes four or more inclusive of writing in the crossed line custom to save paper. Most are datelined at Monterrey where he discusses the people the customs setting and more. Despite the condition flaws there is much to be gleaned from his correspondence. In his April 15 1850 letter . he describes his trip to San Juan Bautista from Monterrey in detail while he was on his way to San Francisco. Williams writes of his great pleasure on tasting cooked beef by the Indians that he found was the best he ever tasted as they camped on the way to San Jose with the ultimate goal Mission Dolores in San Francisco: “this the beef they put on the embers of the fire and broiled it - I never tasted anything like it before so tender so juicy…” One of his first notes on San Francisco: "There are regular streets filled with all kinds of sorts of stores… The shipping covers the water as far as you can see. And those nearest the shore are converted into store houses the rigging being taken down and the and holes cut in the sides for doors.The best houses in town are occupied by gamblers . a large saloon filled with tables on which are played all kinds of games of chance - at some of the tables are displayed immense amounts of coin and gold in lumps worth from 1 to 5000 dollars which some poor infatuated fool of a miner has at some time lost to them." In his letter of April 16th he discusses both his difficulties with women in California and his lack of fitting in back east: “The Spanish Girls are very nice and all that sort of thing but the trouble is to find one that is educated. I can’t bear an uneducated wom an and I think I shall have to come to N.Y. and bring one out here… I know one or two in N.Y. but I don’t believe they would have such an uncouth specimen of an ‘hombre’ as me…” In his next letter he describes Carmel in detail. He states: “I haven’t been to the mines nor have I any inclination to go” though he intends to settle in California permanently. In his next letter he discusses the people he’s met and how he detests the anglophone community there: “How do I like the People Those of Spanish whom I call my friends I love with all my soul - there is not much society except among them… the Eng. and Am. population I detest from the bottom of my heart. This may sound strange but you will know the por que when you arrive.” He then praises the climate and scenery of Monterey. One letter written from Panama which has unfortunately sustained heavy losses at margins offers some details of the trip on the Chagres River. The replies to Williams from his family offer details on life in New York and are similarly compromised in condition but overall there is enough to glean from the group to provide a detailed example of family correspondence from the period. Overall a very interesting and unusual archive of a young professional who moved to California during the Gold Rush period and rejected the Anglophone mining community with particular interest to historians of Monterey and of the systems of land grants that shaped Mexican and American land policy in the nineteenth century. unknown
1851réf. 58179San Francisco: Thompson & Hitchcock 1851. Lovely Unused California Gold Rush Letter Book A lovely example of an unused Gold Rush letter book intended to advertise Joseph Gregory's California and New York Express Line as a convenient way for gold seekers in California to communicate with friends and family back home. Gregory's California Express according to the wrapper is "one of the oldest established in the business dispatch messengers BY EVERY STEAMER leaving New-York and San Francisco in charge of Letters Parcels Packages Gold Dust and valuables for distribution throughout the United States and California." Also according to Gregory's text "this book is made of the finest letter paper and of the size of a folded letter which with an envelope will not exceed the weight of a single letter and is more convenient than paper in sheets." The inside rear wrapper prints two testimonials from the PANAMA STAR praising the express line's speed and volume. Gregory also published a pamphlet titled GREGORY'S GUIDE FOR CALIFORNIA TRAVELLERS; VIA THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA 1850 primarily to promote his business. A scarce and well-preserved piece of Gold Rush ephemera here with the original unused envelope. 24mo. Original dark purple wrappers printed in gilt. Very minor wear to wrapper edges. Near fine with the original unused plain paper envelope. unknown
1850réf. 68036Northumberland NY and Tuolumne County CA. 1850–1857. New Yorker in the "Land of Gold" A scattered but intriguing collection of manuscripts related to New York native Isaac Vanderwerker or Vanderwarker who made for the California gold mines in 1850 and remained out west until at least 1857. This group consists primarily of letters written to Isaac by his brother at home in Northumberland inquiring after Isaac's activities in the gold fields and commenting on matters at home though it also contains a detailed letter from Isaac himself a letter from his ill-fated sister Joann and two letters written by business partners in California. The earliest letter here written by Isaac's brother who signs only with initials is dated October 7 1850 shortly after Isaac arrived in California. Isaac was apparently one of many gold-seekers who elected to take a slow sailing ship from Panama rather than wait on the heavily delayed steamships though he weathered the journey better than most. Isaac's brother also notes several acquaintances who "have returned without making their fortune" and still more who are leaving regularly for the mines including a "Justus" who "made a vendue and sold his personal property" in order to fund the journey. Everyone in town it seems either wants to head to California or has an excuse not to. "I hope you will be one of the lucky ones and get well paid for all your toil sufferings and anxieties" he writes to his brother. "We have most of the California news every month. I saw in the last paper an account of the riot and burning of Sacramento City it spoke of some large lumps of gold being taken out weighing from one to forty pounds at Carsons new diggings on the Stanislaw another instance where a man took out four thousand dollars in two days at Murphy diggings but these cases are something extra John L. Cramer is at the Northern Mines on the Yuba…." The Vanderwerkers were early settlers of upstate New York and appear to have done well for themselves – Isaac and his brother are involved in several substantial properties and much of their correspondence relates to the management of their farms. The next letter in the group comes from the following summer written by Isaac's sister Joann. Joann discusses more details of the family's properties and notes that her health is poor enough that she is not sure to see the end of the week. Regardless news of California remains at front of mind: "There is a story in circulation that Aron Bliss Jaines Brother in law has stoll 15 thousand dollars at San Francisco and the owner has followed him here and there a going to take him back and hang him. John Cramer is on the yube never his Father said he guest by his writing he was not doing very well." From here we skip two years to October 16 1853 when Isaac's brother writes to tell him that large numbers are still heading for California. Joann has been holding on the last two years and "Old Frank" who used to work with them before moving to Canada would like to know if Isaac has work for him in California. He also goes on to discuss a bit of contentious New York politics: "We shall have five state tickets this fall viz whig Barnburner or soft hunker Adamantine or hard Temperance & abolition. The whigs no dout will carry the Election. The Barnburners had quite a majority in the State Convention….the Canal board are Barnburners & they are making a clean sweep of the hunkers." The letters continue over the next few years regarding more transcontinental legal matters real estate dealings Joann's eventual death in 1855 and the usual litany of deaths and marriages at home. The most content rich letter in the group is the only one written by Isaac himself sent to New York from Tuolumne County on May 18 1857. As Isaac describes his life in the west he also reveals himself to be a talented writer: "Dear Brother I will again endeavour to correspond with you by a few rude caught characters on paper which may put you in mind that you have a Brother Still in the land of gold…." He sends some gold home not present describes a chance meeting with the aforementioned John Cramer remarks on the high cost of goods in the mines and recent fires in San Francisco and Stockton. Business isn't cheap in the "land of gold" and he claims he "can do as much business in the States for 10 Dollars as I can Here for one Hundred." With that in mind he adds a postscript stating that he has sold out his plot and mining apparatus for $1500 and will try to go into business burning lime or supplying bricks and lumber in Benicia. He describes the new town and the rapid pace of development in California: "Benicia is situated about thirty miles up the Bay from San Francisco and about Six miles from the present Capital of the state named Vallejo. About three months ago the first building was erected which is a Hotel about two weeks ago they commenced building there is now about twenty small houses up and one three story Hotel. The government officers reside at Vallejo after the 10 of this month. I had an introduction to the governor at Vallejo last week he is a clever sort of man but not Dignified hardly fit for the Station…." Isaac's brother responds to this letter a few months later curious about his sibling's new business ventures. He also comments that "by what I can learn of the character of the Mexicans and Indians I should hate to travel alone without being well armed. I see by our papers that Lynch Law is that that governs all the mines I saw an account of a man being hung at San Francisco by Mr. Lynch at short notice." Unsurprisingly more and more are returning home by 1857 including a man named Wells " come in the same steamer your letter did he was sick but made out to keep up till he got home and died less than a week after he was not very successful in California." A heartfelt letter from a friend about the health of Isaac's mother also present seems to have convinced him and Isaac returned home for a visit to New York in the latter part of 1857. A September 3rd letter from his business partner John W. Kelly sent from Sawmill Flatt is addressed to Isaac in Saratoga and discusses business dealings in California. It would appear Isaac never pulled completely out of mining as the letter regards efforts to secure mortgage payments for Isaac's "ditch." The final letter in this collection is dated December 17 1857 and is addressed to Isaac from the offices of A.C. Goodrich in Columbia California. Goodrich describes a large flume his company has built 180 miles long and twelve feet wide by three feet deep "exclusive of the artificial embankment or five hundred ton stream capacity this day and night as we have reservoirs in abundance to hold the night & Sunday water. Would give 1000 ton streams which sold at the precent price viz $4.00 per day would pay ten per cent on a Capital of $1000.000. This would give a large basis for waste and reduction in price and still leave room for handsome profits on our Capital stock of $450000. The present cost of the work we can only approximate to but it is not far from 100000$." They hope that Isaac can become their agent and help them find investors. An interesting group of letters sent between brothers in California and New York during the Gold Rush stretching across seven long years of separation. Old folds occasional light tanning and staining. Very good. unknown
1927réf. 62150Hollywood CA: Hollywood Bowl Assoc. 7046 Hollywood Blvd. 1927. 4to. 32 pp unpaginated. decorated title w/ tinted background borders 28 Xavier Cugat illustrated plates throughout. Colour-illustrated softcovers Art Deco cover art of caricature conductor by Cugat yapp fore-edges minor wear dustsoiling slight scuffing still VG copy. First edition of this surprisingly scarce and splendidly illustrated caricature rendering of the stars and performers at the Hollywood Bowl for the 1927 Season. Caricatured among the “Hollywood Bowlsheviks” are Alfred Hertz who inaugurated the first Hollywood Bowl season of music in 1922 Bruno Walter Vladimir Shavitch Cecil B. De Mille Louis B. Mayer Pola Negri Hestelle Heartt Dreyfuss Lloyd Wright Pierre Monteux Douglas Fairbank and Mary Pickford. De Bru 1900-1990 was a child prodigy taken to Cuba where he trained as a classical violinist played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in Havana and after New York was hired as musician and caricaturist in Hollywood at the Bowl. He also put together a tango band in 1927 which performed at the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador and later took up a long term residency at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for 15 years and one of the noted performers was Desi Arnaz. His famed caricature “Curtain of Stars” measuring 40 x 60 feet hunt at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Cugat’s brother Francis was a noted illustrator best remembered for his cover art of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Worldcat locates 1 copy Cal. Hist. Soc. Lib.; Paul Spitzzeri Striking a Chord: A Program for Summer Concerts at the Hollywood Bowl 19-23 July 1927 Homtesead Museum July 20 2020. Hollywood Bowl Assoc., 7046 Hollywood Blvd., paperback
1851réf. BK0070Owsley's Bar Yuba River California 1851. 2 pp. 7 ½ x 9 ½ inches. Folded for mailing and postmarked San Francisco February 1 with red-orange circular datestamp and matching "40" rate handstamp. Minor wear with small pale spot to address panel. A Gold Rush letter from Thomas J. Dabline at Owsley's Bar on the Yuba River giving a detailed report on a dispersed community of Maine emigrants in the California diggings. Dabline names roughly a dozen acquaintances recording their locations occupations and in several cases their financial success while also describing the effects of an exceptionally dry winter on mining along the Yuba. Dabline begins by noting that he has continued mining "with about the same results" and then describes the winter season which had brought remarkably little rain. The shortage of water had begun to interfere directly with mining in the dry ravines: "The very small quantity of rain which has fallen has operated unfavorably for those who are engaged in mining in the dry ravines and hundreds who have been throwing out dirt for washing have been obliged to leave it for want of water. But should it continue as it has it will be very favorable for an early season up the mountains." He compares the weather to a pleasant October in Maine with occasional frost and thin ice and remarks on the relative health of the surrounding mining population estimating only six or eight deaths during the season among roughly 1500 to 2000 miners living within several miles. The strongest portion of the letter is Dabline's account of what he calls "the other Maine boys" who were dispersed across the northern California diggings: "I cannot tell you much about the other Maine boys. They are scattered about the country in the various diggings. I have learned that F. McLeod has gone home with about 3000 dollars and Mr. Sholl with 5000 or 6000 dollars. Fitch Demey is over on the American River in the Express business. Mr. Vinton & Upton are down on the McCormic or dry Creek. Mr. Carpenter with the two Johnsons of Waterville are over on the Feather River. Mr. G. is I believe at Sacramento City. The Trumbulls are up about Nevada City and Dr. Anderson was sometime back down at the little village of Nicholas which is about 55 miles above Sacramento." The passage offers a compact picture of a Maine migration network after its arrival in California with members spread among the Yuba American and Feather River regions Nevada City Sacramento and other settlements. Dabline records both the mobility of the group and their varying outcomes including men who had already returned home with several thousand dollars and another who had entered the express business rather than mining. He closes by mentioning current excitement over reports of a rich new discovery at Gold Bluff though adding that "very little credit is given to the tale here." A useful firsthand account of the social geography of the Gold Rush documenting a community of Maine emigrants across the mining regions while remaining connected through news of one another's whereabouts and fortunes. . unknown
1853réf. BK0072Volcano California 1853. Autograph letter signed "S. W. Leonard" to his uncle Joseph Winslow in Mansfield Massachusetts. 2 pp. 7 ½ x 9 ¾ inches. Folded letter with clear circular "VOLCANO / CAL." postmark and matching "10" rate handstamp. Light aging; very good. A Gold Rush letter from a miner who after traveling hundreds of miles through California believed he had finally found a promising claim and a community in which he could remain. Writing from Volcano in the middle mines of Calaveras County S. W. Leonard reports modest but steady earnings on Sutter Creek describes the speculative hopes of his six-man company and contrasts the settlement's families and Sunday meetings with the more transient camps he had left behind. Leonard and William Draper had spent the previous week working a claim about a mile from Volcano making "from five to eleven dollars a day a piece working about nine hours a day." The returns were respectable rather than spectacular but Leonard's hopes centered on another claim held by members of the company. Local reports told of a French miner who had taken as much as one hundred dollars from a single load there the previous year. The men had not yet reached the promising layer but were "in hopes it will provide as good as reported." The company consisted of Leonard William and James Draper Comey and Davis of Pawtucket and Clark of New York. They were paying seven dollars per week for board. Leonard expected to remain in California for years and believed that if his health held his prospects were "flattering." His optimism rested not only on the claims but on Volcano itself. After months of continual movement through the diggings he considered it "the best place that I have seen yet" since "I left Peoria" and hoped that he would never "be obliged to take another tramp of this kind." Volcano had already begun to take on the character of a permanent settlement; Leonard counted approximately forty families mostly from the western states and noted that religious meetings were held every Sunday: "There is no place of resort here for evil purposes and what people are here are steady working men." He closes without dramatic news but with the guarded confidence typical of the Gold Rush: a workable claim an untested prospect tolerable living costs and the hope that he had at last reached the end of his wandering. A representative letter from the California diggings recording the modest daily economics of mining and one emigrant's search for both a profitable claim and a stable community. . unknown
1855réf. 3206Coyoteville: September 12 1855. Very good. 2pp. plus integral blank. Original mailing folds moderate toning staining and ink spotting but still easily readable. Bottom fourth of integral blank excised. An informative Gold Rush letter about mining in the long-vanished ghost town of Coyoteville which was an extraordinarily rich gold area for a couple of years in the early 1850s. A noted tunneling method nicknamed "coyoteing" was developed in the town and subsequently inspired the name of the town. In the present letter Moses Pine writes to "Catherine" in Branch County Michigan and signs his name simply as "Mose Esq" at the conclusion. The author informs Catherine presumably his wife or sister of his activities some of the economic realities and some of the practical details of prospecting for gold in California. Presuming that "it would be impossible for the whole of Branch County to raise $10 unless they sell a horse" Pine comments that he had ginger bread on the Fourth of July after working all day and yielding a "half Ounce Gold Dust." He then provides a detailed description of his mining: "I am now tunneling in a hill. We are 150 feet under the ground. Day before yesterday we got small respect 25 cents to the pan for the first and the bed rock pitching. I think we will find good pay in the going 100 feet further the expense is heavy as we have to blast and timber the tunnel." Pine also talks of his health and that "I work hard every day do my cooking and baking." He then expresses his hope to get back to Michigan to "rest a few months" but knows nothing of other Michigan folks in California: "Have not seen nor heard anything of them in a year. I guess they have all gone home with a fortune in a horn. Well good luck to the lucky. Old Mose will come home after a while with a pretty hat on." A nicely-detailed letter from an unusual and obscure Gold Rush location. September 12 unknown
