$40.00 CAD
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Interesting letter from Phineas Pratt(?) of Gardiner Maine, looking to sell his ticket to California during Gold Rush, June 1850. Sent to Moses Emery in Saco Maine. Discussion of the economic hardship, horse and carriage business, railroad, etc.
Historically, June 1850 is squarely within the California Gold Rush period. The fact that a Maine resident was trying to place or acquire a California ticket indicates the ticket had substantial value and that travel plans were still being arranged rather than casually contemplated.
Gard June 25,1850
My Dear Sir,
I have looked and enquired in all direction, for some one, wanting a ticket, the 28 Inst., for California. But I find but a single individual going from this region, and he is already supplied with a ticket. I hope in mercy you will not have your ticket; but it – be just like all our late fortune, if you should.
I learn, thro Capt. Dormon, of this place, that the cargo, of the Compton, was assigned to her Capt. that he cod not sell so as to pay expenses, and called on Wm. Bodfish, an old Lumberman, to assist him, & he succeeded in selling so that, after paying freight & & expenses he has remitted $2000 to Judge Beddington toward his part of the lumber.
I went yesterday with some confident hope that I – get a Note for Billy but failed. An obj. is made to his fore feet; that they are in bad shape and tender, and more without some foundation; and fore seeing this obj. I have taken special pains to get them in as good shape as possible: ha got him shoed repeatably as Augusta, as I could not get it done to suit me here. We missed it in not selling him at first, for the most we could get, tho had not Business opened this spring & summer, so much worse any one could have expected. There had not been a demand for hoses and carriage, where as now, little is doing but moving people away, since all our R Road operations have closed. I do not wholly despair of ever getting a note for him, but will do any thing you say, if to send him back to Saco.
The harness is really worth just about nothing. Almost every week it has to go to the Harness Maker’s to be repaired & it costs more than the use of it is worth/ Do you still wish it sent back to you?
I hope, before a very long time, to get some kind of a proposition for Hilton.
Demand against Dinsmore will be very soon outlawed if not attended to , and I have very little confidence. That any thing could be gotten of them if I should be at the --- to find him, some one of the,. Or more, have gone to Calafornia.
Have you still any good ground of confidence that Tennessee Lands can be sold in N York? If I has any I would continue some way to have it done.
I do not see, after all, but you will have to go to Calafornia. The more I think of it, the more impossible it seems for us ever to pay all our debts staying here at home., where business is becoming less every day. I would certainly go if I did not fear being more trouble than profit
As ever yr
P. ---
4 pages.
Gardiner had just been incorporated as a city in 1849, one year before the letter was written. It was one of the most important commercial centers on the Kennebec River and a major shipping port. Its economy was based on:
In 1849 there were numerous commercial wharves serving the waterfront, handling lumber and other products from the surrounding region.
Railroad promotion was sweeping New England in the late 1840s. Many investors put money into proposed rail lines hoping for rapid profits. The writer is telling Moses Emery that local railroad investments had performed badly and that confidence was weak.
Interestingly, Gardiner was connected to the railroad network shortly afterward, in 1851, only about a year after this letter.
