RECEIPT BOOK OF A CALIFORNIA
GOLD MINING COMPANY

An artifact of the operations of a London-based gold mining firm recording payments for a variety of goods and services from 1872 to 1874. Trends can be traced across the receipts; most noticeably a stiff rise in the price of tunnel digging, which from the beginning to end of the.....

LARGE COLORADO SILVER MINING
LETTER ARCHIVE, 1877–1879

A rich and extensive archive comprising 117 letters documenting two years of the Boston Silver Mining Company’s operation in Saints John, Colorado, including much content relating to labor and the concurrent mining boom in Leadville, Colorado. The bulk of these letters are written by a company manager, who ran the.....

“SHAFTED” BY A BAD MINING DEAL
IN TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA, 1880

A pair of letters from a young man in the new silver-mining boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona to his father, reporting on recent experiences in Tuscon as well as in his new home, including getting married, getting “swindled” (twice), and running a store on a tight margin. The first of these.....

“THE QUIET DESERT AIR IS WHAT I LIKE”
ARIZONA TERRITORY IN LETTERS

A substantive gathering of letters by an early figure involved in the Arizona Territory scene, with discussions of mines, horseback riding and local travel, real-estate projects, and more. Levi Edward “Ned” Hewins was a prominent real estate and mining agent in Arizona before and after it became a state. Born.....

MANUSCRIPT PROSPECTUS
FOR COPPER CLAIMS LOCATED
IN THE GOLDFIELD, NEVADA REGION

A prospectus describing the Marvel Copper Claims by their apparent owner L. W. Marvel, including a manuscript map of the claims and evidently created for the consideration of a small number of potential investors.  Located in Esmeralda County, Nevada, the property described in this document embraces five claims (Dedman, Hill.....

“GOLD HERE AND I AM BOUND TO HAVE SOME”:
A MAINER ON HIS NEW LIFE
AND PROSPECTS IN CALIFORNIA

An earnest letter by a gold miner from Maine on the difficulties and hopes of his new life in California, as well as the broader gold rush scene.  Writing from Mormon Island to his brother John H. Oliver, who lived in Bath, Maine, Henry M. Oliver (1808–1876) begins this letter.....

CHAUVINISTIC EFFUSIONS OF AN EARLY TEXAS SETTLER
AND FOUNDER OF BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

A remarkable letter by a pro-slavery Northerner who emigrated to Texas in 1837, shortly after the Revolution, and settled in Independence, located in Washington County, in southeast Texas.  Independence, founded in 1835, is about 80 miles northwest of Houston. Edward Wyllis Taylor (1814–1886), born in Sunderland, Massachusetts, was a self-exiled.....

A TWENTY-TWO PAGE LETTER
ON A SERIOUS BRUSH WITH BANDITS
IN COLORADO TERRITORY

A long and vivid wild west letter by a Lieutenant in the 6th Cavalry who fears for his life after seriously—but not fatally—wounding the gang-leader George Graham during a failed holdup and subsequent gunfight with Graham and his accomplices. Wetmore provides an extensive account of the melee (supplemented with a......

HUDSON VALLEY LETTER ON THE FATE OF A FRIEND
CAPTURED AS A MEMBER OF THE TEXAN SANTA FE EXPEDITION

A heartfelt letter written by a Hudson Valley resident discussing an acquaintance who was captured and imprisoned by Mexican troops during the disastrous Santa Fe Expedition, but who, thanks to the personal intercession of former President and fellow New Yorker Martin Van Buren, would soon be liberated. The letter is.....