(CALIFORNIA) Form of Copartnership of the Mount Hope and Cal

Sale 2253 - Lot 87

Price Realized: $ 4,320

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

(CALIFORNIA.) Form of Copartnership of the Mount Hope and California Mining and Trading Association. Letterpress broadside, 14 x 8 1/2 inches, with Autograph Letter Signed and address panel on verso from William P. Munro 2nd of Bristol, R.I. to his uncle William Bryant of Kendall Mills, ME. Bristol, RI, 29 January 1849 (letter)

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Includes the partnership rules and by-laws of this Gold Rush association launched out of Rhode Island. Members agreed to forgo gambling, intoxicating liquor, and working on the Sabbath, and to dedicate themselves full-time to the association's success. Withdrawal without providing a substitute was forbidden. In the letter on verso, Munro reassures his uncle of the association's Christian character: "I send you our by laws so you may see how we start, if we don't return the same. We are determined to start fair." A passenger list later published in the New York Herald shows that this group left for California with 34 passengers and crew on 6 March, with William P. Munro listed as third mate. Almost of the passengers were from Providence or Bristol, RI. Munro, at least, was back in Bristol by the next year's census. Only one copy on WorldCat, and no other copies known at auction since the 1968 Streeter sale, IV:2582.