Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 294

Price Realized: $ 875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(WHALING.) James R. Johnson. Letters from a Pacific and Arctic whaler who dabbled in gold mining. 3 Autograph Letters Signed to various family members in Pennsylvania; various sizes, moderate wear. With typed transcripts and two envelopes bearing San Francisco postmarks. San Francisco and elsewhere, 1853-1879
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James R. Johnson (1820-1879) was raised in Pennsylvania, but went west to lead an itinerant life mining gold in California and whaling in the Pacific. These three letters to his family back east are written with more than a little swagger.

On 13 February 1853, he wrote, apparently from the whaling port of New Bedford, MA, to his brother Charles Johnson: "Well, I shall go to sea in the spring. . . . Come out and see me before I go. If you can, and if you will come, I will pay your exspences on and off. . . . If you want some money, you shall have it. I stand No. 1 amongst the whalemen here, come & see. . . . For the future 25 months I expect to bee distant from home if good luck attends me. I anticipate good luck." His sister Charlotte adds her own postscript.

On 5 May 1864, he was still at it, writing to his sister Charlotte A. Johnson Fisk from San Francisco: "Thair is grate many ups & down in this world. One year ago I baught a schuner, fit hur out for a whalein cruse, went down on the Lower Calafirnia, get on the wreck. . . . I have an interist in a minein clame sum 100 & 50 miles from here on Cattalina Island. I exspect to work thare this summer if the lord is willin. I think, if I no miself, I will be with you about November next." Regarding San Francisco, "Tha are a drinkin people & as a gineral thing tha will stupe at eny thing for money. Every house is a grog shop & God only knows how many thair is of ill fame, but tha are numeris as the sand on the sea shore."

His last letter is addressed to brother-in-law John Albin Fisk from San Francisco on 1 March 1879: "I would give you a small account of mi last cruse in the Artic & thar abouts. Well, I left off after captering a large sperm whale sum 300 miles from Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. That was the time that I sprant mi left arm. . . . It is hard work to hold up a bum gun to mi sholder to shute a whale for our guns that wee use to kill whales with weighs 40 pounds, all steel. The 6 of May 1878 I sailed from Honolulu mate of the William Allen bound to the Artic Ocean on a whalein & tradein voige. Wee had quite a good passage up to the Fox Islands [Alaska]. . . . 25 made Gors [St. George's?] Island. . . . This island is covered with white bears & sum of them are very larg. Tha have bin known to weigh 2 tun. Well, we did not stop for bears as wee was lookin for biger game. . . . Saw sum 3 or 4 whales, lowered for them. Your humble servint had the luck to hook one of these monsters of the Cape, wha whale man terms a bo head whale. . . . The 3 of August mi vessail was stove with the ice off of Cape Smith sum 3 miles from the land, 25 miles south from Pointe Barrow [the northern tip of Alaska]. . . . We all began to think that we would have to winter in the Artic Ocen but the wind shifted & all got out the last of Sept."

Three wonderfully colorful letters, of interest for whaling, San Francisco, gold mining, and Alaska.