Mar 18, 2010 - Sale 2207

Sale 2207 - Lot 49

Price Realized: $ 2,040
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(CALIFORNIA.) Howland, Jacob. Two letters and a detailed diary written for his wife en route to California. 14 pages (10 x 8 inches), on 5 leaves; moderate wear and soiling, 3 small areas of loss at seals. Letter dated Rio de Janeiro, 25 November 1849 with enclosed "Memorandum of Events Happening on Board the Bark Chester" from 27 September to 21 November * and letter dated Valparaiso, 4 February 1850, with enclosed journal from 29 November 1849 to 31 January 1850. Vp, 1849-50
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Jacob Howland (1823-1885) was a struggling shoemaker supporting a wife and two young children in Plymouth, MA when news of the Gold Rush broke. Soon he was off in the Bark Chester along with dozens of other optimistic young men, sailing around Cape Horn to the gold fields of California. He was not a fan of the ship food: "Had the greatest breakfast to day that ever a set of pigs had set before them. They called it dundyfunk. It was composed of hair, shirtbutons and dishcloths striped up and other articles too numerous to mention" (19 November). Stopping in the port at Valparaiso, Howland was discouraged to see a community of Americans already in retreat from the gold fields: "There is a number of gold diggers down here from California and they tell all sorts of storys. . . . There is gold enough and you can get it if you have your health. It requires a good deal of care to keep from getting sick. . . . They drink and gamble to a very great extent and there is any quantity of bad women in this place." On a more reassuring note, he told his wife: "I would almost give my interest in California to see you and my children sometimes, but then I get to thinking that if I have good health I shall soon be back again with a sum of money sufficient to buy me a snug little farm and then we shall be as happy as a king. Thus you see that I am building castles in the air, but that is all the comfort I can take. . . . Kiss the children for me every night, learn them to lisp their father's name so they may not be utter strangers to me."
We don't know how well Howland's share of the American Dream panned out, but the census gives us some hints. In 1850, Jacob was living with four other miners in a shack in El Dorado County, while Betsey and the children were staying in a humble rented apartment with Jacob's parents back in Plymouth. Jacob returned east by 1856. In 1860 the growing family owned $500 worth of real estate in Plymouth, with another $3,300 in the bank, and Jacob was now a "shoe manufacturer."