Manuscripts
Pierre Joseph Jeunot journal
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Architectural drawings and maps of Pierre Pharoux
Manuscripts
Architectural drawings, in ink and watercolor, for various buildings in New York, including the house and store of Jacob Quesnel and Country house of M. Chorand, and maps of the French Company tracts on the Black River, Castorland Long Falls and Cataract on the Black River, and a plan of Esperanza Town on the North River.
mssHM 2028
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Joseph Cleary journal
Manuscripts
This journal consists of lines composed by Joseph Cleary on board the Barque Sarmiento during her voyage from Panama to San Francisco, California. Cleary's voyage is told in twenty-seven eight line stanzas, rhymed A B A B, with a four line chorus after each stanza. While more or less honoring the formal requirements of the poem, he manages to report on the ship, the weather, food, sanitation, officers, crew, lack of water, and his fellow passengers. "The rats which in them got / The rankiest odor up did send / As they did slowly rot...With worms our bread was all alive / Our beef & pork did stink / Though it to eat we still did not starve." Death is a also grim reality, "And most of us are yet alive / Though eight are with the dead." In verse twenty, the crew reaches Honolulu, Hawaii, and remains there until verse twenty-five. "But since the Sandwich Isles we've seen / The time does not seem long / For we much better fed have been...Whilst daily we expect to land / And leave this hateful ship." After the twenty-seven line stanzas, there is a bawdy poem about lice feeding in a mining camp, which is written in mirror image cursive. The next poems are titled, "The Miners Prayer," "Epitaph on a Chinese Grave," and "A description of the view from the western summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains." "Those mighty Nevadas with steep and rugged fronts lifted high their lofty brows: peering the ethereal Regions of snows eternal...Overlooking the western world: which from here Presents to the beholder a scene in All its bearings truly wonderful and Sublime." His description of the mountains is followed by a note about Penn Valley, California, on April 27, 1854, "A Miner's Surprise," "A trip to the summit of a mountain near Coloma, Eldorado [El Dorado] County, California," and a long poem to "My Dear Sister." He addresses his sister, "I look upon Ohio now / As a poor place to be hoe and plow / And poorer still to gather wealth / And worse by far respecting health / I almost dread to venture back / Least some disease my frame should rack." There are also acrostics spelling, "Elisabeth Dickson," "Maptha Dickson," "Mary Meguire," and "Catherine Mulholland." The final poem in this volume is titled, "Woman." "They're always trying to employ / Their time in vanity and prate / Their leisure hours in social joy / To spend is what all women hate."
mssHM 80821
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Jean Pierre Vibert letter to "Monsieur Lauret,"
Manuscripts
The letter is written by Jean Pierre Vibert to a "Monsieur Lauret" regarding an order of roses purchased by Lauret. In addition to a detailed invoice of thirteen roses, Vibert exchanges pleasantries with Lauret about visits that his customer has made to Chenevieres, ending with a discussion of the imminent closure of his business and the deep discounts that he can therefore offer on his 1833 catalogue of rose specimens. Letter is in French; written in Paris. With typed English translation.
mssHM 80796
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Joseph Cross letters
Manuscripts
Two autograph letters from Joseph Cross to his parents. The first letter, dated Dec. 7, 1806 (HM 62947), was written from Fort Michilimackinac. Cross describes an expedition in which he and a group of soldiers searched for and rescued nine soldiers who went missing while taking supplies to Fort Saint Joseph. Cross found the men on a "desart island," starving to death and contemplating "the horrid plan of killing and eating one of their number." He then proceeds to list the adventures that he had since his last letter home, including traveling "396 miles up Lake Michigan among the Indians," descending "the celebrated Falls of St. Mary in an Indian canoe," being shot at by two Indian "centinels" and "blown up in a gun room" after the stored ammunition caught on fire. He was injured in the last incident, but "owing to the skill and great attention of our Surgeon and good health and constitution" made full recovery, "without a scar."
mssHM 62947-62948
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Pierre-Jean de Smet letter to John Dawson Gilmary Shea
Manuscripts
Writing from St. Louis University in Missouri, de Smet is happy to help with compiling information for Shea's almanac. When the almanac is ready, de Smet asks that a copy be sent to his native Belgium.
mssHM 4018
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Joseph Verot letter to Charles Covilland
Manuscripts
Verot requests Covilland to send payment for interest for the month of May, as Verot needs it for his son's expenses. In French. With printed bill of exchange to order, filled in to Joseph Vero by hand, in the total of two thousand four hundred twenty francs. Includes unattributed translation into English.
mssHM 43210