Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 62

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"A MAN WITH A STARCHED COLLER WILL NOT MAKE HIS FORTUNE HERE DIGGING GOLD" (CALIFORNIA.) Group of 3 Gold Rush letters from the Curry family. 3 Autograph Letters Signed, each a bit under 10 x 8 inches (3, 4, and 2 pages in length): two from David Curry to his wife Mary Priscilla, and one from John Curry to brother David, the earliest letter with a worn address panel featuring an inked San Francisco postmark; first letter worn with loss of a few words, other two letters with minor wear. Various California places, 1849 and 1856

Additional Details

David Curry went to the gold fields, as many did, as a partner in an incorporated mining company. The first letter is dated from Sacramento on 15 July 1849. It describes the trip over, and how his Roe Mutual Association became defunct: "Before we came to San Francisco it was understood among the most of us to dissolve the Association for reasons that we thought that their was too many together & too many officers & most of all their was too many that did not like to work." They sold their schooner and divided their provisions--"every man goes on his own hook." Another association led by Colonel Zabriskie had also failed: "His party of 25 is all bust up & every man for himself." Curry then formed a small party with 5 other New Jersey men. His party plans to head out for the Yuba River for the season: "The most of us came out to make money, we must do the work. A man with a starched coller will not make his fortune here digging gold, but the red flannel & hickory shirt & one that is willing to work can get some gold."

His 23 December 1849 letter is dated simply from "California," and describes his trip up river "to the mines (they call it here going to see the elephant)" where "4 of our company got scared at the elephant, turned round & went back to Sacramento." Curry spent three months working for another miner, tried to ship out on a steamer to Hawaii when rainy season hit, but then returned to mining at Mormon Island near Sacramento. There he was working for his original Association partner Mr. Poole, who was running a store, intending to stay there through the spring. He describes the mining regions as "a hard-looking place, you generly dig down from 5 to 10 feet, full of stones the ground is, then take your dirt to the river & wash it in a rocker just like a cradle & the gold settles to the bottom. I send in this letter a small piece for to remember me by." We should make 100% clear that the gold fleck is no longer present with the letter.

Finally, a letter is addressed to David Curry from his brother John Curry, who had also gone west for mining. It is dated at Mokelumne, 16 November 1856: "I bought a interest in a mineing claim close to the flume but two weeks after buying the water got so low in the flume that we could not get water. . . . We don't shovel much dirt in the boxes as we ground sluce. It is a very fast way of working dirt."