Jun 21, 2016 - Sale 2420

Sale 2420 - Lot 77

Price Realized: $ 1,188
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CALIFORNIA.) Pollard & Peregoy; lithographers. Illustrated lettersheet telling the story of miner "John Smith," with letter. Lithographed letter sheet, 9 x 11 inches plus integral blank leaf; minor foxing, slight loss at intersection of folds, minor edge wear, several short archival tape repairs on verso. Written on the integral blank is a 2-page Autograph Letter Signed from E.D. Jones to his wife Mary Jane [Hagan] Jones of Steubenville, OH, no place given, dated 24 July 1851, with address panel on verso of lithograph (no postal markings). Sacramento, CA: Lovegrove & Murray, [1850 or 1851]
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C.J. Pollard was one of San Francisco's first lithographers, publishing his first view of San Francisco in February 1850. This humorous narrative in nine vignettes came not long after, in partnership with Charles E. Peregoy. It was lithographed in San Francisco and published in Sacramento. It tells the story of John Smith, who takes leave of his wife, finds gold, "bets his pile on the Jack" at a Sacramento gambling house, loses his fortune, reforms, invests in a ranch, and returns to his wife "with his pile." Peters, California on Stone plate 91 and page 179. None in OCLC, though a copy is traced at the California Historical Society; one other example traced at auction (Streeter sale, V:2677 and later at Sloan, October 1994, lot 133). This is the variant with the imprint reading "Sac'to City" outside the neatline; the example illustrated in Peters spells out the city and is within the neatline.
The Streeter example was used in 1852; this one narrows the printing date a bit. The letter in some ways parallels the fictitious John Smith depicted in the lithograph. After bemoaning the difficulty of getting into the city to receive mail, Mr. Jones seems to be living out Vignette #8:"I shall not be hear longear then I can sell my hay & my team & hous in right & redy. I will not right any more from Californa. Let the consequence be what it will." A transcript is included. Edward Jones, born circa 1825 in England, is listed as a "gold hunter" in the 1850 census of Steubenville, OH, with his wife Mary Jane and son Algernon remaining at home. We don't know if he ever made it back to Ohio, but Mary Jane was apparently widowed and living with her father by 1860.