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Columbia January 1852.
San Francisco: Pollard & Britton’s Lith, 1852. Lithograph, 10.5” x 15.5”, backed with Japanese tissue. Original owner’s manuscript annotations. CONDITION: Good, old folds, now flattened; modest foxing and toning, small area of restoration in upper right corner. An unusually large and very scarce California pictorial letter-sheet view of the mining town of Columbia. An artist, architect and civil engineer, George Henry Goddard (1817–1906) left his native England in April 1850 to seek his fortune in California, arriving in San Francisco aboard the Diana in October of that year. Unsuccessful in his attempt to gain employment with John C. Fremont in Mariposa, Goddard then tried his hand at mining in the region. “But although he had failed to find gold or employment, he had made drawings of the Mariposa region, and these he took with him when he returned to San Francisco. Soon Goddard was off again to the mining country, this time to Columbia in Tuolumne County…Columbia in that year, according to Edna Bryan Buckbee, consisted of ‘forty saloons and gambling halls, a long thoroughfare flanked on both sides by fandango and hurdy-gurdy houses, three theatres, including a Chinese playhouse.’…Goddard remained in the Columbia-Sonora area through most of 1852 and 1853. He continued to make sketches of the gold region, and in 1852 wrote to his brother of his aspiration to have his views of Sonora and Columbia published. The hope was eventually realized [later that year]” (Shumate, p. 2). At least seven such views after Goddard’s drawings were lithographed in San Francisco by Pollard & Britton (or its successor Britton and Rey): the present view of Columbia; Sonora, January 1852; Columbia, Stanislaus [i.e., Tuolumne] County [i.e., a second view of Columbia]; Southern Approach to Jamestown; Springfield; Tuolumne; and Campo. They are among the earliest such works to be registered for copyright in California, with the present view, dated March 25, 1852, the tenth work so registered (Greenwood, page 482). “Yet Goddard’s success in having his works published was a mixed one. He wrote his brother Augustus in 1852 that, ‘My views have done me little good. You are aware that in publishing them the stones remained security to the lithographers for the bill of expenses and as they are sold very slowly, the latter seize the stones and published a great lot of copies in lettersheets and selling them at a cheap price have made a good deal of money by it’” (Shumate, p. 3). Given its size (10.5” x 15”), it is hard to imagine this view as a lettersheet. Presumably, Goddard’s views were re-lithographed in lettersheet format (i.e. closer to 8” x 10”) by Britton and Rey to recoup their investment. See Peters, California on Stone, plate 89. The view is notable as an iconic representation of a bustling mining town during the Gold Rush, printed on a scale larger than that of the typical letter-sheet view. Dozens of buildings are shown with a wide street running through the center; men and one woman in the foreground move about, coming and going to seek their fortunes; a group of men at the right work a sluice box. This example includes manuscript annotations, with “My cabbin” noted in the left margin, evidently referring to the cabin identified as No. 1 on the hill on that side. A total of seven of the buildings are numbered in manuscript, likely references keyed to a letter. Goddard would go on to have a successful career in California as an artist, mapmaker, surveyor and engineer, best known for his important 1857 map by Britton and Rey, the first map of California based on actual surveys. His papers, comprising hundreds of original drawings, as well as copies of his views, surveying journals and more, were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. As with all of Goddard’s 1852–53 views, this lithograph is scarce. Reps records examples at the Bancroft Library, the Amon Carter Museum, the Society of California Pioneers, California Historical Society (San Francisco) and AAS. Two additional examples are held by Yale. REFERENCES: Baird, California’s Pictorial Letter Sheets 41; Clifford, California Pictorial Letter Sheets 36; Peters, California on Stone, p. 180 and plate 89; Reps, Views and Viewmakers 76; Reps, Cities of the American West, p. 203; Greenwood, California Imprints, 1833–1862, p. 482; Shumate, Albert. The Life of George Henry Goddard (University of California, 1969).
Item #9236
Price: $5,000.00
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