Franklin Augustus Buck Papers

The papers consist primarily of correspondence written by Franklin A. Buck from 1846 to 1881 to his sister, Mary Sewall Bradley, living in Bucksport, Maine . The collection consists of 225 cataloged items, 1 piece of ephemera, and 150 envelopes. They detail his activities in New York City until early 1849 and then his life in various parts of California and Nevada from 1849 to 1881. Because Franklin regularly addresses his letters and envelopes to his sister as Mary Sewall Bradley and does not include her maiden name, the cataloging of the collection reflects this use.

Most of the letters detail Buck's life in California and Nevada between 1849 and 1881, and they document various floods, local and national politics, and the Civil War. The letters also illustrate the nature of frontier and pioneer life, gold and silver mining, ranching, and 19th century social life and customs in California and Nevada. The Weaverville letters also include descriptions of the local Chinese community, and the collection is dotted with comments by Buck on the California and Nevada Indians.

The collection also contains five letters from Franklin to his father, Rufus A. Buck, who was also living in Bucksport, maine. There are also six letters to Mary Sewall Bradley from Franklin's younger brother, Sewall Buck, which were written from California between 1851-1854. There is also an exchange of letters between Franklin and a friend named Edwin Kirk in San Francisco, California, in 1852. At the end of the collection is a typed document by Rockwell Dennis Hunt (1868-1966) which discusses the Franklin A. Buck correspondence.

Portions of many of the letters were published in A Yankee Trader in the Gold Rush: The Letters of Franklin A. Buck, compiled by Katherine A. White (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930).