(CALIFORNIA LETTERS) Allison John Fall Gold Rush letter fro

Sale 2310 - Lot 73

Price Realized: $ 625

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

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

"WAS OBLIDGED TO WRITE . . . ON MY WASH PAN, HAVING NO BETTER DESK" (CALIFORNIA--LETTERS.) Allison, John Fall. Gold Rush letter from a miner on the Feather River frontier. Autograph Letter Signed to parents. 4 pages, 10 x 7 3/4 inches, on one sheet; dampstained, worn along center fold. With original mailing envelope addressed to his father Robert Allison of Oriskany, NY. Nelson's Creek [Plumas County, CA], 15 September 1850

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A lively letter from a solitary miner at camp near the middle fork of the Feather River a hundred miles north of Sacramento. While hiking north alone from Sacramento, "As I awoke and I opened my eyes I was a little alarmed by the sight of an Indian standing over me. I arose rather hastley with my pistol in hand. The Indian grinned a little and then vamous'd, as we say in Spanish." Allison soon contracted malaria and camped for a week in the woods, unable to go further, but a good Samaritan provided him with quinine, and he recovered. He eventually reached Nelson's Creek deep in the mountains: "It is four miles down as steep a hill as it is possible for a mule to travel, and a California mule can go were a cat can go. I have done pretty well here, making sometimes an ounce a day, at other times only half an ounce, and sometimes two ounces, but often onley 5 dollars. Provisions are very dear here, but I have saved a few hundred dollars which I will send you as soon as I can with safety." In a postscript, he apologizes for his handwriting, noting that he "was oblidged to write with all haste and on my wash pan, having no better desk."
The author, John Fall Allison (1825-1897), later became an influential early settler of Princeton, BC, serving as gold commissioner of the local mining district.