Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 63

Price Realized: $ 2,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(CALIFORNIA.) Artimus Coburn. Letters from a gold miner at Murphy's Camp. 8 Autograph Letters Signed to his wife in Brunswick, ME; folds, minor wear. Each with original envelope bearing inked Murphy's postmark and postage of "10" in manuscript or inked stamp, except the final letter stamped "Paid 6." Mostly from "Murphy's Camp," CA, 1852-1854
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Additional Details

Artimus Coburn (1816-1889) of Brunswick, ME was "early left an orphan . . . a man of quiet determination of character, and by his own efforts and industry became a prosperous lumber manufacturer," according to a profile in The Owl Genealogical Quarterly of December 1903. The Owl does not mention his two years mining gold, which may have helped jumpstart those business operations.

The first of these letters is dated at Coyote, CA, 17 July 1852. The remainder are from Murphy's Camp in Calaveras County, CA--now the town of Murphys. Coburn wrote on 8 March [1853]: "I must stay a little longer and try my luck. I have bought into a claim which will take some time to work it out. It is thought to be very good." On 28 May 1853[?]: "There has been some roberies commited, but not very near us."

On 12 September 1853, he describes the little settlement's first wedding ceremony: "There was a marriage here Sunday Sept. 4th, the first in Murphy's Camp, and no doubt but evrything past off finely untill about 12 o'clock at night I was awoke from sleep by the ringing of the church bell and other vociferous noises to numerous to mention. The Chinese gongs was one of their instruments . . . enough to startle anyone from midnight repose. . . . I have paid all up for my claim & now what I earn I can lay up & not have to pay it out for an old dead horse."

By 10 May 1854 he was looking for an opportunity to return to his wife and children: "There has been a very large piece of gold found at Coyote. The piece weighed 32 lb. . . . Our claim is paying very well, but we have been put back by the caveing of the bank." A month later on 13 June, "Our claim is not paying much now & we shall get it work out by the first of August I think, and then I shall have to prospect to find another claim, or vacate the mines."