(MAINE) Sals Letter from a backwoods border surveyor written

Sale 2432 - Lot 208

Price Realized: $ 2,375

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

Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

(MAINE.) "Sals." Letter from a backwoods border surveyor, written on birch bark. Autograph Letter Signed to his father[?]. 4 pages on one strip of bark, 9 x 12 inches; folds, several small horizontal flaws in the bark, closed horizontal tears, but generally complete and legible. Camp Metingett[?], ME, 9 September 1866

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Additional Details

The author was a Canadian on a surveying expedition just over the border into Maine. He was accompanying a friend and six Indians from Lorette, Quebec. They seem to be working along the northern Maine-New Hampshire border: "We are now 10 miles from the nearest house, and by the time we reach our furthest point shall be 17. On one march we several times crossed the border line of the states, merely a path cut thro the woods. . . . Ted is surveying this township to let it off in survey lots." This may be what is now the township of North Oxford--a large tract of land which still today has a population of only 17. The other geographical references are to the Chaudiere River just over the border in Quebec, and possibly to the Quebec village of Tingwick--where the author may be from. For amusement, the author hunted partridge and prospected for gold, and enjoyed describing his buffalo robe, red cap, and moccasins.