72
●
(CALIFORNIA.)
Complete set of the Early California Travels Series.
50
volumes. 12mo, various publisher’s bindings; various conditions but generally minimal
wear.
Los Angeles: Glen Dawson, 1951-61
[1,500/2,500]
“WAS OBLIDGED TO WRITE . . . ON MY WASH PAN,
HAVING NO BETTER DESK”
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(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 enve-
lope addressed to his father Robert Allison of Oriskany, NY.
Nelson’s Creek [Plumas County, CA], 15 September 1850
[600/900]
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 hun-
dred 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.
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