Charles Penniman Daniell Papers

The collection consists of letters and a few photographs related to Daniell's experiences and life in San Francisco (1850-53). Charles is the author of all the letters and the only addressees are his sister Lucetta, his mother Sarah, and his father Josiah. The letters, generally one to four pages in length, are arranged chronologically. Several of the letters are duplicated in typewritten format. Charles wrote the bulk of the letters from the city of San Francisco, but there are also letters from Boston, where he helped with his father's dry goods business and from the ship "Marcia Cleaves" as he sailed around the Horn to California.

A seemingly amiable and optimistic young man, Charles appears to wrestle with the challenges of making his own way in the world and the longing for the familiar. The letters rarely go into great detail, but they allude to a great variety of topics such as home-sickness for his family and New England, the importance of "Steamer Day" when mail arrives, the weather, his health and well-being and that of his compatriots, the importance of social relationships to business success, the difficulty of business success without sufficient capital, the diversity of nationalities/ethnicities on ship and in town, party politics, the Vigilance Committee, church attendance, anecdotes about music, his food and lodging conditions, the outbreak of fires and cholera in town, and the occurrence of marriages at home in Massachusetts and in California.

Photographic material includes a photograph of the Daniell family, four copy prints of daguerreotypes and four negatives of copy prints of Daniell family members, the family's house in Roxbury, and William standing next to his brother's grave in California.

Subjects include: the ship Marcia Cleaves, Voyages "around the Horn", ocean travel, Valparaiso, (Chile), San Jose (California), life in San Francisco, and business enterprises there, the city's U.S. Custom House, city politics—especially the Vigilance committee, church attendance, the building of a Unitarian church, relationships between men and women, ethnic relations, anecdotes about music, and descriptions of fruit purchases.