Reminiscences of John Wesley Hillman, Famous Forty-Niner and Discoverer of Crater Lake as dictated to Bentley B. Mackay | Collections | The Huntington

Reminiscences of John Wesley Hillman, Famous Forty-Niner and Discoverer of Crater Lake as dictated to Bentley B. Mackay | Collections | The Huntington

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This manuscript, which is a typescript from the original, documents Smith's journey from New York to San Francisco between the dates January 15, 1849 and January 24, 1851. Included are voyages by sea and by horseback, across Mexico and California.
mssHM 30493
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Logbook of whaling ship Hillman of New Bedford :
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Typescript copy of a logbook kept by an unidentified person onboard the whaling ship Hillman of New Bedford, Massachusetts, captained by Christopher Cook. The generally brief entries from July 11, 1851 to March 17, 1854 mention the ship's position, weather, prevailing winds, ships sighted, whales encountered and results, and some shipboard activity. The Hillman travels across the Atlantic Ocean to the Azores then south to Cape Horn and to the Pacific Ocean. Destinations in the Pacific Ocean include the Galapagos Islands, Byron's Bay (presumably Byron Bay, Australia), the Sandwich Islands, the Sea of Okhotsk and the islands of Onekotan and Paramushir, and Talcahuano and Valparaiso on the coast of Chile. Entries occasionally mention supplies procured at ports and locals interacted with, but there are no detailed descriptions of shore visits. The typescript is bound; an additional unbound typescript copy is available.
mssHM 16764
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George B. Currey letter to L. R. Webster
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In this letter to Judge Webster, Currey discusses the potential sale of "the property" in Oregon. He writes, "I trust some Republican will become the purchaser," and states he may be coming to Jacksonville soon to visit Webster.
mssHM 16547
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California as I saw it : pencillings by the way of its gold and gold diggers! and incidents of travel by land and water
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Dr. William S. McCollum (1807/1808-1882) was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Niagara County, New York. He went to California in 1849, returned to New York the following year and then paid a second visit to California as a physician for the Panama Railroad Company. California as I saw it (1960) reprints McCollum's 1850 book describing his first visit to the West: San Francisco in 1849, a journey to Stockton and the Southern Mines and to Sacramento and the Northern Mines, prospecting near Jacksonville, and medical practice in Stockton and San Francisco. After describing his return voyage east via Panama, McCollum closes with advice and reflections on the law of the mines, Native Americans, the life of women in California, etc. The book's Appendix include letters written from Panama by H.W. Hecox, McCollum's fellow passenger on the voyage to the Isthmus, February-March 1849. Hecox was so disheartened by his wait for passage to California that he returned to the United States without ever seeing the Pacific Ocean.
643624
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Honest farmer from Arkansaw on a lark seein' the west
Rare Books
An account of the author's trip to Oklahoma and throughout the American West, Southwest, and Northwest at the beginning of the twentieth century written in a series of letters and short narratives from Milam to his wife Mollie and his son. Additionally, a long section is addressed to his sister and daughter. In the course of the narrative, Milam travels to Fort Sill, Lawton, and Comanche County in Indian Territory, continuing through the west by rail to Corpus Christi. After taking a train from Jacksonville Florida to Lufkin, Texas, he continues on to Oregon for the Lewis and Clark Exposition. Milam also visits and comments on Galveston, San Antonia, Saint Louis, Boise, Vancouver, Wyoming, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and other locales.
653852
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Jonathan Heywood letter to Jane Heywood
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mssHM 4182