Search

The Fremont Mining and Trading Company diary is a small bound notebook (54 pages) recounting the adventures of a member of the "Fremont Trading and Mining Company" formed in 1849 to search for California gold.

The Fremont Mining and Trading Company diary is a small bound notebook (54 pages) recounting the adventures of one of its members. The company was formed in 1849 by subscribers who wanted to search for gold in California. The author made almost daily entries during the ship’s six-month voyage to San Francisco, then wrote more sporadically during the period of the company’s successful search for gold in the Feather River north of Sacramento and the author's return as far as Panama in March 1851. In the back of the diary, the diarist registered the members, their ages, homes, and occupations. He also listed the daily logs of longitude, latitude, and miles traveled for their long trip, as well as names of the officers and crew, all but two of whom were also shareholders. The author failed to identify himself; John F. Jordan is written inside the cover of the book, but he is not listed as a member of the trading company.

The adventurer arose at 5 A.M. on March 27, 1849, three miles from Glastonbury, Connecticut (near Hartford), went overland to Hartford, and took a steamboat to New York City. He leveraged twelve shares in the Company as surety for a $400 note, payable in one year, accompanied by a paid-up life insurance policy for $1,000 to one Benjamin Cook. They sailed from New York on April 1l. Their route took them within sight of the Canary Islands, then on to their first landing in Rio de Janeiro. There, many of the company went ashore nightly to get drunk, much to the author’s disgust. He noted that the US Navy ship Brandywine was in the harbor, the Emperor and Empress of Argentina rode around in a carriage, and that he went upriver to buy 2,000 oranges for about $10 for the ship. On June 13, after the crew loaded 20 casks of water, the Selma took off to round the Horn, a stormy trip with ice-covered decks.

The second stop was at Valparaiso on August 8, where they encountered an English man-of-war, said to be carrying several hundred pounds of gold dust from California, consigned to a house in Boston. He attended a Protestant church to hear a sermon preached by David Trumble, son of John Trumble of Colchester, Connecticut. Finally on October 5, 178 days since leaving New York, they arrived in San Francisco. The author went ashore on Sunday and reported that the city had two Methodist churches, and one each of Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist churches. The cooks and stewards promptly deserted ship and then sued for back wages, which, after a court hearing, were denied. Members of the company had to take over their duties, such such as cooking for 86 men. Such desertions were common when ships arrived in California.

Some stayed on ship and sought odd jobs in the city, while other members formed small parties and set off upriver to Sacramento. The author left ship on October 22, when he slept on land for the first time in more than six months. Eventually, they brought their ship up the river, in time for them to stay on it during a disastrous January flood. People were rescued from windows and roofs; 70 or 80 residents lodged on board their ship at $3 a night, $5 or $6 a day, and $30-40 a week. Members established a mining camp about 35 miles from Sacramento, which was quite successful financially, although many of them became sick and three died.

Claims were purchased by members of the company in both the Yuba and Feather Rivers and were thoroughly mined. Even the rivers that ran through the city of Sacramento yielded little gold. By February 1850, the members of the company were so dissatisfied that they broke up. The author sold his tools for $50, then joined members Smith and Ransom to borrow $200 for the purchase of a mule; they started off by themselves to a new claim. Through March and April they were able to recover from $300 to $1,000 a week. On March 30, the author returned to Sacramento and found their old company in disarray. He described several scenes of violence, and mentioned encounters with deer, grizzly bears, and beaver.

On June 8, he wrote that all their claims were worked out, but that they had recovered about $3,300 so far. In July he joined a new company of 14 men to build wing dams in order to divert river water, thereby opening up new sites for panning. As a result, by September they mined gold worth $665 per miner, including a 4-oz. piece that he had found. In October, the company disbanded for the winter, whereupon the author resumed digging on the banks by himself, recovering from $12 to $15 worth of gold a day.

He wanted to go back to Sacramento for the winter, but stayed away when he learned that the city was reporting 60 cases of cholera a day. He and Walter Griswold built a cabin near Centerville, intending to spend the winter there. They heard reports that one man had dug 40, 30, and 18 pounds of gold on three successive days. He also mentioned that Indians killed two men; they buried one of them alive, and roasted the other one.

In January 1851, the new company sold the claim and the cabin. The author went to Sacramento and then to San Francisco, where he boarded the Adrian, mastered by George Scott, and paid $75 for passage to Panama. The ship left on January 24, 1851. The diary ends without explanation, when the ship was near Panama on March 28, 1951.

This travel journal documents a journey from the Missouri River to California during the time of the California Gold Rush. The trek began on April 28, 1850, near Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River, and ends on October 31, 1850, at Georgetown, California, on the edge of what is now the Eldorado National Forest, north of Sacramento.

The Gold Rush travel journal (44 pages) spans the period from April 28, 1850, to October 31, 1850, and details an overland journey from the Missouri River to California, during the time of the California Gold Rush. Of the diary's 44 pages, the last 9 contain lists of food purchased from stores and traders (buying tobacco and food and selling gold), and the final page concerns buying food in St. Louis (May 29, 1849).

The author made entries every few days and provided descriptions his location, total distance traveled, and, occasionally, of weather and temperature. While the party traveled mostly by horse and wagon, they also used rafts and ferries to cross rivers. Entries are short and generally provide only details of the scenery and the party's routes on their way west. The author began his journey on the Missouri River at Elizabeth Landing, and ended it at Georgetown, California. Several entries specify his location with names of rivers and landmarks, including the Little Blue River, "Grand Island" (north of Fort Kearney), the Platte River, Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, the Sweetwater River, the Soda Springs, the Bear Creek River, Goose Creek, Mary River, "Hudspeth’s Cutoff," and the Humboldt River. The traveler also mentioned the killing of a buffalo by a William Hubbard, trading with the Sioux Indians on the North Platte River, signing Chimney Rock, and passing by a spring hot enough to boil coffee. He provided financial details such as the cost of particular ferry crossings and supplies. At one point, the author recorded being ill with mountain fever, but quickly recovered without further incident. On June 2nd, he noted that "the dust [was] very bad and the ground was covered with Alkali and the dust [on the] mountains looked like they had burned for a thousand years."

On October 1, 1850, the author left his company and traveled to Georgetown, California, and began working on a claim at Pools Bar on October 5, 1850. His last entry is from Georgetown, California, on the edge of what is now the Eldorado National Forest, north of Sacramento.

The papers include family correspondence, journals, notebooks, a photograph, and miscellaneous, mostly concerning Dr. Blackwood's medical career and gold mining experiences in California during the Gold Rush of 1849.

The Papers include personal correspondence, mainly between Dr. and Mrs. Jane Blackwood, describing journeys to California and Nevada, the uprising of Negroes (June 16, 1827), and a cholera epidemic (from Jane Blackwood, 1849). There is a diary of Mrs. Blackwood, and her notes on mathematical calculation, kept while living in Ovid (New York), 1827. Dr. Thomas Blackwood is also documented by a medical notes book, 1827-1832, including the diagnosis and treatment of his patients, receipts, payments, and births, August 1832-September 1833; his certificate of entrance to the Washtenaw Medical Society, June 1832; and his travel journal, 1850, while aboard the Loo Choo. Lastly, there is a copy of his first letter published in the Washtenaw Whig, September 12, 1849.

The Charles Collins diary consists of accounts, both credit and debit, between Collins, a carpenter, and his customers and suppliers in frontier California during and after the gold rush. The volume also contains twelve pages of a fragmented diary describing travel from Iowa to California, and life as a prospector, farmer, and carpenter.

The Charles Collins diary and account table is a leather-bound notebook that was purchased in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1844. The bulk of the book is made up of accounts, both credit and debit, between Collins, a carpenter, and his customers and suppliers. The last twelve pages, written back-to-front, constitute a diary covering the dates June 11, [1852]-July 4, 1853. Several pages have been ripped from the volume and the diary resumes in July 1867.

The first eight pages of the account book contain accounts from 1846 to 1849, when Collins was a carpenter in the East. After a number of cut-out pages, the accounts pick up again in 1855, when Collins was in California after an unsuccessful attempt to profit from the gold rush. Starting in Fort "Desmoin" (Des Moines, Iowa) on June 11, [1852], he makes entries in the diary through July 23, as his group headed west in wagons. After leaving Des Moines, they traveled 12 to 18 miles a day, arriving at Council Bluffs on the Missouri River on June 24, where they joined 11 other wagons. Twenty wagons in all crossed the Elkhorn River on June 29th and headed for the Platte. They celebrated the 4th of July by raising a flag and firing 13 guns. Since they were in Indian country, they circled the wagons and posted guards at night. Approaching Grand Island, they found two graves of individuals who died of cholera. They sighted Buffalo on July 22, and the next day they lost their cattle, which halted their travels for nearly three weeks.

The next diary entry starts on November 13, 1852, when Collins and his companions agreed to rent 15 acres of land from the local priest in exchange for giving him 1/5 of any productions. He reported almost daily rain. They killed deer every few days, encountered many drunken Indians, and tried, unsuccessfully, to prospect for gold. On January 10, John Richardson killed two bears and wounded two others.

On February 5, 1853, Collins stated that their search for gold had been unsuccessful. That day, John Richardson took off secretly with the white horse, complete with saddle and bridle, a blanket, a dog, a gun, and shot. Collins made a coffin for an old lady who died; he and the remaining “John” planted wheat and barley, and on February 24, the priest gave them the vineyard in exchange for half of all fruit it produced. They grew potatoes, cucumbers, melons, and buckwheat and supplemented this work by repairing various appliances for the priest and other people in the area, such as wheels and buggies, doubletrees, and cheese presses. A doctor named Page lived with them for two or three days, taking notes on the Mission for publication. The last diary entry is dated July 4, 1853.

This volume is an account of thirteen '49ers traveling from New England to California during the gold rush. Comstock describes their journey from New York, on the brig Empire, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and from there overland through Mexico City to San Blas on the Pacific; for the last leg, they sailed to San Francisco. When they arrived in California, they went up the San Joaquin River to Stockton and Merced.

This volume records the daily experiences of Comstock's group as they travelled to California, styling themselves the G. M. Speculating Club. The group went by stage to Troy, then by railroad to New York. There they elected officers and purchased equipment (at inflated prices), which they shipped on a schooner headed around the Cape. On February 18, 1849, they left on the Brig Empire, along with 53 others, 30 men to a cabin, to sail for 22 days to Vera Cruz. Along the way they experienced storms and sea-sickness. On February 27, he wrote, “No tongue can express, no language can portray the awful sublimity of a Thunder storm at sea[;] none but those who have witnessed can realize or even imagine its grandeur.”

Upon arrival in Mexico on March 12, they purchased a wagon, horses, and mules for their trek. Parties of as many as 47 men were departing almost daily. Along the route they encountered cemeteries and battlefields of the Mexican War, which had ended the previous year. They encountered resentful, larcenous people and endured sand fleas and hunger on their 46-day trek. Comstock estimates their distance at 469 miles.

After selling their few remaining horses and mules for a quarter of the purchase price, they embarked for San Francisco on April 29, on the schooner Jacklin, along with 30 or 40 others. Once at sea, they discovered that the Captain had overloaded his ship, and that the food and sleeping accommodations were not sufficient; Comstock remarked that the cooks were terrible. Beset by headwinds and calms, the brig took 32 days to reach San Francisco, by which time the passengers were limited to a pint of water per day and nothing to eat but bread, beans, and rice. At one point the captain so feared mutiny that he tried, unsuccessfully, to sequester all of the passengers’ arms.

San Francisco was teeming with men from all over the world, who arrived daily by the hundreds. The group changed their original plans to sail up the Sacramento River, and instead went up the San Joaquin on a schooner of the same name. On board were several deserters from the Navy. "Deserters are frequent, the Gold Mania having spread among the sailors & causing many of them to leave their $16 per month on Gov vessels and seek their fortunes at mines among scores of other adventurers” (June 11, 1849). The ship had to be “warped,” by placing the anchor forward in a small boat and pulling the ship up to it for miles, but on June 14 they arrived at Stockton, a town of several hundred people, most of whom slept in tents. From there they proceeded in three groups by stage and on horseback for 80 miles to get to the “diggings,” where they worked in two shifts, but only placer-mined a disappointing $10 a day in gold flakes.

They soon dissolved the organization, when one member decided to return to San Francisco. Comstock and a few others were exploring the Merced River when Sherman took an early-morning bath in the stream, slipped on moss-covered rocks into deeper water, and drowned. They buried him near the camp.

This collection holds the personal letters of Louisa Dawley Cruikshank of Oneida, New York, and includes letters from her husband, Henry Cruikshank, while he was traveling in California and serving in military during the Civil War.

The Cruikshank-Dawley papers is comprised of 57 letters between Henry Cruikshank and his wife, Louisa Dawley Cruikshank, from before and during the Civil War. The earliest set of letters is addressed to Miss Wealthy A. Dawley and from William Segun and from Louisa Dawley. These discuss general news and family life. Other pre-Civil War letters include letters to Louisa from her sisters, three love letters from Thomas Ormiston, and three letters from her aunt. Henry Cruikshank received a letter from a friend, who wrote about difficult travels on a steamship, and a letter from his sister Mary, who mentioned killing woodchucks and snakes.

A set of five letters document Henry's travels in California. He wrote from New York City in 1860 just before he set sail for California. Upon arrival, he buys a claim and a cabin for $180 and notes that "California is a hard land for a poor man to live in...there is lots of old Californians here would be glad to get a way from here" (May 26, 1861). Henry has more success by July, as he "got 1,400 dollars out of pile of dirt we washed out, was two months three weeks of work." In other letters, he wrote of coming to "near blows" with drunk railroad workers.

The bulk of the Civil War letters are from Henry to his wife Louisa, though some letters are addressed to his sister Louisa and other family members. In nearly every letter, Henry voiced his unhappiness with being in the army and mentioned his desire to come home. He complained of insufficient protection from the cold, a lack of food, and not being paid. He was particularly unhappy that all the soldiers were fighting for was to free the slaves, and he complained that, in the south, they "live better and have better houses to live in than half the white folk in York State...it makes me so mad some times that I have a good mind to run away and let them go to the devil and would not care if the rebs took Washington" (July 5, 1863). He wrote of being shot in a skirmish just before the Battle of Fredericksburg and of sickness in the army, including an outbreak of smallpox in Washington and, toward the end of 1863, an outbreak of the mumps. In general, Crukshank was critical of the management of the Union army and was relentlessly pessimistic about the outcome of the war.

The most recent letter in the collection was from Henry's son in Camden, New York.

The Myrick collection contains personal, business, and legal papers of a family engaged in the business of manufacturing gravestones and monuments in western New York State. Content includes New York State politics, gold rush California, land speculation, and the Civil War.

The Myrick papers document the personal, business, and legal affairs of a major mid-Victorian purveyor of grave stones and monuments from western New York state. The central figures in the collection, Albert G. Myrick, his son, William W., and brother John William, engaged in an active and highly successful business manufacturing stone monuments for graves and other purposes, but their varied interests took them into the world of New York state politics, Gold Rush California, western land speculation, and the Civil War. Only a small portion of the collection has been catalogued at the item level, with the remainder organized into series.

Box 1 of the collection contains items that have been catalogued individually, arranged in chronological order, 1845-1889. Many of the letters were written by John William Myrick to his brother Albert, describing his myriad schemes to make a fortune in California. More literate than many 49ers, John's letters offer an intriguing social and political perspective on California during the Gold Rush, notably the violence and lawlessness prevalent in the gold fields. His letters also describe the journey across the Isthmus of Panama and then by ship to California.

The Civil War content in the collection is less extensive, but Albert Myrick corresponded with several men who were more directly affected by the war than he, either as soldiers or in other capacities. Of particular interest are John's letters describing California politics during the war (1:76, 80, 90, 114), Edward C. Boyle's letters on military and political affairs in Kentucky (1:82-83, 92), and Christ Siminger's account of the terror to which Democrats were subjected following Lincoln's assassination (1:117). Among the miscellaneous items of interest are James Tibbits' letter announcing his divorce from a wife of ill repute (1:124), and Sophia Myrick's letter dispensing a dose of motherly of guilt upon Albert, "my once beloved son" (1:78).

The bulk of the collection, boxes 2-4, consists of correspondence, accounts, and receipts kept by Albert and William Myrick. The greatest proportion of material in these boxes is comprised of the business records of the Myricks' monument company, providing a wealth of detail about their operations, from the purchase of raw marble to the production of stones and the handling of customer orders and complaints. The correspondence between the Myricks and their many agents enables a fairly thorough reconstruction of their sales techniques and their methods for keeping track of potential customers. The accounts, while not complete, provide valuable information on costs for various grades of marble and for shipping, and, of course, on customer orders.

Also included in Box 2 are some personal accounts of the Myricks and a series of accounts with and relating to the town of Palmyra, including tax records, documents relating to the local cemetery, and records of work performed for the town.

Box 4 contains additional family, personal, political, and legal correspondence. Albert's family correspondence, in particular, often goes beyond the usual familial exchange of pleasantries, particularly in the case of Mary G. Myrick, who became embroiled in a scandal when an attempt was made to take her daughter from her. These letters suggest how deeply Albert was influenced by his participation in Freemasonry, his significant role in the American Party, in the formation of the Constitutional Union Party, and in the Democratic Party, and his entanglement in a legal battle dating from his days in the New York Canal Department. A small clutch of letters from family members who had settled in the west provides some interesting descriptions of life in Michigan and in the upper Midwestern states.

The Phelps-Lyon family papers consists of the correspondence of two Michigan families written while home and away, including letters from Louisiana, California during the gold rush, and serving with the Union during the Civil War.

The Phelps-Lyon papers feature all that one would expect of a family correspondence -- birth, death, marriage, sickness, religion, housekeeping, making a living, and socializing. About half of these letters to and from various family members chronicle such matters in homey style, generally without a lot of detail. The other half represent those who left home, and had other tales to tell -- of cholera and yellow fever, the Wisconsin prairie, rough characters in the gold fields, bloody Civil War battles. Their experiences of unfamiliar worlds form a vivid contrast to the daily work and rituals of the family circle.

Four letters from Sarah Phelps Cook to her aunt Adaline Phelps Lyon and her grandmother Margaret Bigelow Phelps, written in 1868-1869, are typical "domestic correspondence." They discuss church and visiting, new babies, dress-making, fourth of July and Christmas, weddings and funerals -- the range of family and community concerns which comprised a woman's world in this era, place and socio-economic setting. Men's home-based letters, such as those of Phineas Lyon, Sr. to son Thomas in 1831 and 1833, are less focused on the social, although they include gossip and news of illness and accident. Of central concern are economic issues such as business conditions, prospects for crops, building of houses, and the like.

Thomas Lyon recorded his impressions of exotic Louisiana in three letters dating from the 1830's. The young man was articulate and insightful, if somewhat misinformed in health matters. In October, 1833 he writes that news of the cholera outbreak is exaggerated. "I have witnessed many cases of cholera and have no doubt that people are more frightened by the suddenness of death and the howling and yelling of those taken than by the number of deaths. ... I have seen enough of the cholera and yellow fever to convince me that neither is infectious." Thomas was not impressed with New Orleans, finding it "a miserable looking place of business all mud and tobacco smoke. The streets full of Negroes and mulattoes, Mexican, Spaniards, and Indians, every man with a segar in his mouth and a bunch of them stuck in his hat band and perhaps his pockets full into the bargain."

Another son of Phineas Sr. and Sarah, Elijah Lyon, wrote four letters from Illinois and Wisconsin in 1837-1838. With the enthusiastic optimism of the newcomer he describes the fine land and abundant crops, plentiful wildlife, ready money and high wages, and healthy climate of these up-and-coming areas. Moreover, the native Indian population is obligingly selling out and moving on. He writes from Green Lake, Wisconsin in November , 1837: "... the fatest [venison] I ever saw is brought almost every day by the Indians and sold very cheap which with their furs make somewhat of a chance of speculation a few families of Winebagoes still take up their residence about here though the greater part of the tribe have gone beyond the Wisconsin river having sold all their lands this side."

Amos B. Phelps corresponded with girlfriend Elizabeth Pacey while prospecting for gold in California from 1851 to 1854. Amos, a level-headed and temperate young man, cast a critical eye on the squalid living conditions and degraded specimens of humanity he found in the gold fields. In these 20 letters he makes up for clumsy grammar and spelling with sharp observation. He writes from Placerville in December, 1851: "There is all kinds of beings here and from all parts of the world. As for calling them men, they are not, only in form and I do think that some of them have not as much intellect as a dumb brute. ... There is thousands of men that would go home if they could raise the money, but when they get a few dollars they go to gambling in hopes of making a pile in a short time. But instead they loos all they have. As for me, I am determined not to go in the way of temptation." The young man's resolve was strengthened by his wish to return home and marry Elizabeth, and their on again-off again courtship takes up much of the correspondence.

The scenery within Amos's view likewise did not impress: "immagine yourself standing on the top of a high mountain in a vast willderness. Then extend your eyes in all directions and you will see vast wilderness covered with lofty pines ... and miners with pick and shovel stragling in every direction to find the precious juel. Then take a peep down into the ravines and you will see men of all descriptions at work diging the ravine still deeper. Then take a look at the sides of the mountains and there you will see caves that men are diging and under mineing them. Then take a look into some valey and you will see a city built of staves. Then take a squint inside and you are satisfide that it is not a [sic] very pleasant to behold. Such is the scenery, Elizabeth, that I am obligd to look upon. But I care not if I am able to get a good pile of gold and return in safety to Michigan." He did return in safety, though without the pile of gold, married Miss Pacey, and settled down to life as a Michigan farmer.

Phelps's nephew Edgar had his adventures in the more dangerous setting of the Civil War battlefield, and described them in three letters to his uncle Amos and eight to his aunt Adaline Phelps Lyon. In November of 1862 he writes of his experiences in the Fredericksburg campaign, cheerfully stating that he doesn't expect much hard fighting before they get to Richmond, "where we will give them hail columbia and make our winter quarters in the city." By December, engaged in battle at Fredericksburg, perhaps he was learning that it would not be so easy: "I can judge we have gained nothing yet but have lost a great number killed and wounded. There was one of the fourth here just now he says that they are very strongly fortified and we can never drive them out unless we charge on them in a mass. You need not worry about us I guess that we will come out all right." He next writes home from Mississippi. Two letters of June and July, 1863 describe the siege of Vicksburg and fighting at Jackson. An October 1863 letter from Knoxville, Tennessee discusses rampant pro-Union sentiment among the civilians, and one written in December of that year describes in detail the fighting at Fort Sanders the previous month. Photocopies of Edgar's service records included with the collection reveal that he did not "come out all right," but died from an infected wound on June 6, 1864.

Two letters from Phineas Lyon, Sr. to son Thomas, and two to Phineas from an old New York State neighbor, Wells Rathburn, are interesting examples of Quaker writing style. Rathburn's July 1, 1851 letter bemoans the dispersal and shrinking of the Quaker community. The collection also includes a printed epistle of the yearly London Friends meeting for 1804; an 1822 yearly meeting document was transferred to the Books Division.

Folder one contains extensive genealogical material on the Lyon and Phelps families which is helpful in identifying the cast of characters and their relationships

The Stephen Smith papers are a partial record of the business transactions of a Boston cabinetmaker and furniture dealer, concentrated in the years 1834-1853.

The Stephen Smith papers are a partial record of the business transactions of a Boston cabinetmaker and furniture dealer, concentrated in the years 1834-1853. Despite its incompleteness, the collection provides a good overview of the trade, and includes some detailed information on cabinetry, iron stoves, retail operations, clock making, apprenticing, and business practices, and gives some minor insight into the lives of an upwardly mobile member of the skilled artisan class.

The most informative series of letters in the collection are the more than ninety letters between Smith and his brothers-in-law, Thomas and John L. Lothrop, relating to the manufacture and sale of iron stoves, and the twenty letters written by a Concord, N.H., clockmaker, Abiel Chandler, discussing clock manufacturing and the consignment of his goods through Smith. Chandler's letters provide details on the prices, design and distribution of clocks. Labor arrangement are not a major topic in the collection, however, there are several letter relating to efforts to arrange apprenticeships for boys entering the cabinetmaking trade, and one regarding a boy named Henry, possibly a relative of the Lothrops, who wanted to become an apothecary (3:34). According to the Lothrops, Henry was a difficult case, and suffered from the serious fault of a short attention span and an interest only in things when they were new. One letter, written in 1842, includes notice of a convention for cabinetmakers in Boston (2:45).

The Smith papers contain ten letters relating to the California Gold Rush, six written by Stephen Smith's brother, George L. Smith, in 1849 and 1850, and two by a ship captain who transported them to California from Boston. George's letters include literate, optimistic descriptions of the voyage around the horn and of conditions in San Francisco and Sacramento during the first year of the Gold Rush. They are especially interesting in that George was a minor success at gold mining.

Among the miscellaneous items in the collection are two unusual, brief letters of some note. The first is a letter from a recent widower, Kimbal Smith (3:13), discussing the death of his wife and the emotional hardships he has faced, and the second is a plea from a young man in prison, John Daly (3:51), pleading with his father to get him out and providing a vivid, though very brief sketch of the horrifying conditions.

This volume contains diary entries intermittently composed by Thomas G. Spear, a printer and dry goods merchant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between June 15, 1843, and December 30, 1848. He commented on his business affairs, current events, his personal life, and family matters.

This volume contains diary entries intermittently composed by Thomas G. Spear, a printer and dry goods merchant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between June 15, 1843, and December 30, 1848. He commented on his business affairs, current events, his personal life, and family matters.

The diary is made up of three loose folios of 44, 8, and 14 pages, which comprise a single running account. Spear often wrote groups of daily entries, though some are separated by a month or more. The diary primarily concerns Spear's finances and his printing and dry goods businesses; he often mentioned his apprentices and other laborers. He sometimes mentioned current events such as anti-Catholic riots (May 9, 1844), the publication of the Book of Mormon and the spread of Mormonism (March 11, 1845), and the California gold rush (December 22, 1848). Spear also described some of his social activities, which included attendance at lectures, attendance at a horse race (May 28, 1845), and membership in the Sons of Temperance. A newspaper clipping about Spear's business affiliation with Reuben Hanse is pasted into the first folio (August 2, 1844).