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“Sam.”

[Autograph letter, signed, from a Virginia City, Nevada miner to his sister Julia in Maine.]

Virginia City, Nevada Territory, 9 November 1863. Bifolium, 8” x 5”, 3 pp. in ink. CONDITION: Good, some separations along old folds, one 1.5” tear, no loss to text, some toning along folds and on last blank page.

An early letter from a miner in Nevada’s gold and silver boom discussing money matters and Virginia City’s murder rate.

“Sam” informs his sister Julia in Maine that “I am earning a goodeal now and shall continue so long as I have my health[.] I cleared $93, above my board this last month only $80 more than I earned the last months work I done in the state of Maine.” Most of the letter is devoted to financial prospects, especially the help he is able to give her and others at home ($15 every month, and “Tell Alfred if he is likely to run short of hay before spring, to write me for money”), as well as his prospects for further earning:

I cant do so well during the stormy weather but can probably clear $60, perhaps the $15 will not be sufficient for the present demand but if the $15 per month comes regularly through the winter I guess it will keep them along but I dont wa[n]t to restrict them as long as I can get the money. 

The first of these payments must be broken up into two installments, as “I have unexpectedly come out to town and have only money enough to send you 5,00—did not intend [to] send the money untill Thursday,” but this circumstance will, he hopes, lessen the “liability of its all miscarying.”

In response to the news of one “Sam Edridges assumption [of] authority” at home, Sam remarks that “He would do for this city but that would not be mentioned here the murders will[?] almost one a day the year round, but”—he assures his sister—“you may rest assured I give all such company a wide birth.”

Two major gold and silver strikes—known as the Comstock Lode—were made in the region of Nevada’s Virginia City in 1859. The district attracted miners from throughout the U.S. and abroad, and generated immense amounts of wealth, fueling the growth of San Francisco and the Bay Area, as well as Virginia City itself, which by the 1870s had become “one of the most important cities between Chicago and the West Coast.” Likewise, the mining and corporate investment practices that developed in the Comstock District “were imitated internationally well into the middle of the 20th century.”

Early evidence of the high earnings made by everyday miners in Nevada’s legendary Comstock District.

REFERENCES: “Virginia City Historic District, Nevada,” National Park Service online.

Item #8353

Price: $450.00

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