This collection contains 16 letters that mining engineer August F. W. Partz wrote to his business partner, C. Elton Buck, between May 16, 1864, and October 31, 1864. Partz wrote from the Mamakating Mine in New York (3 items); Cleveland, Ohio (2 items); and Quincy, Illinois (11 items). The letters are drafts or writer-retained copies; some pages have more than one letter written on them.
Some of Partz's letters pertain to his business interests, particularly regarding a mining opportunity in Santa Fe, New Mexico; he also mentioned the possibility of bringing German laborers to the United States to work with nickel (October 3, 1864). Most of Partz's correspondence concerns his attempts to travel from New York to Santa Fe via Cleveland, Ohio, and Missouri. He spent October 1864 in Quincy, Illinois, waiting for an opportune moment to continue his journey, which had been rendered dangerous by guerilla attacks on trains in Missouri. Partz discussed the opinions of Missouri and Kansas residents and refugees, attacks on passenger trains, and military developments in Missouri, especially those related to General Sterling Price. For a time, Partz considered traveling to the Southwest by way of California. In one letter, he mentioned his fear of Native American hostility (October 1, 1864).
August F. W. Partz was born in Germany on January 7, 1821 or 1822, and immigrated to the United States in 1849. He worked as a mining engineer for the Mamakating Mine in New York in 1864. That year, he intended to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to explore another mining opportunity, but he elected not to travel beyond Quincy, Illinois, because of guerilla fighting in Missouri and Kansas. In 1870, Partz lived in Oakland, California; he later lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Julia had at least two children, Julius and Constanza. August F. W. Partz died on October 4, 1908.
