Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 156

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"SHREVEPORT IS HELL ITSELF" (LOUISIANA.) William B. King. Bloodcurdling description of the raw frontier settlement of Shreveport. Autograph Letter Signed to friend Larkin Turner of Boston. 3 pages, 10 x 7 3/4 inches, on one folding sheet, with address panel bearing New Orleans postmark on final blank; moderate dampstaining, wear including rough separations at some folds. Shreveport, LA, 14 March 1839
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Shreveport was founded in northern Louisiana near the Texas line in 1836. This letter was written by a visitor just three years later, and needs little explanation:

"Shreveport is Hell itself, it is the God damdest bigged ass'd kind of a God dam'd place, fighting all the time, day and night, sometimes 5 or 6 fights in a day, sometimes with fists and Bowie knives, pistols &c. If you look hard at a man here, he will either shoot you or cut you to pieces with a knife. Every man goes armed, not secretly but openly. You will see some with their coat open or off, with belts round their waists with a brace of pistols and [a] Bowie knife stuck in it." The Caddo Indians were also troublesome: "I have just come from their camp last night. They fought among themselves and two were killed. . . . It is supposed that they intend to rise on the whites. Should they do so, we would not be well prepared, being short of ammunition. . . . One of the Indians threatens to kill me, but I go prepared for him. . . . People in this country never think, there is no restraint, not even to anything to eat. No fresh meat in the place, no eggs, nothing under God's heavens to eat but a little salt cod fish, no potatoes, a few salt mackerel, and but a little bread, no flour to make any more. Very soon I am afraid we shall have to eat ten penny nails and brogans."