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This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2002 May 10 @ 10:00UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
FORTY-NINER GOLD MINER DIARIES AND MORE. Edwin Pickering Drew (1828-1892) and his elder brother Joseph (b.1825) were Dartmouth-educated New Hampshire boys seized with gold fever who headed west in 1849. Joseph went out first, followed by Edwin a year later, eager to share his brother's adventures. According to newspaper clippings with the collection, the Drew brothers "discovered" the mouth of the Umpqua River in Oregon. Edwin settled there and married Alice Crosby in 1859. Under President Franklin Pierce, Edwin served as Indian Agent for the Umpqua Reservation, after which he was Collector of the Port of Umpqua for two years, until he returned to Dover in 1867 to live out his life on the family farm. Joseph Drew also held numerous governmental positions in Oregon.This collection includes a journal steeped in romanticism, entitled, "Droppings from the quill," which was started by Edwin in 1849, while he was still in Dover, N.H. It is full of song lyrics, poetry, and self-absorbed musings: "The day is damp like my future cloudy and overcast no rain falls but a deep fog hang o'er the fields so a veil hangs o'er the future path of him who writes..." He poured out his feelings for his sweetheart Mary, including a four-page account of a dream he had that she had died. Romantic strings notwithstanding, Edwin longed to go to go west -- "I should be more than content could I but go to California's Golden shore and pluck from her rich mines a pocket full of dust" -- and it is no great surprise that the next 113-page volume finds him on his way to California. Edwin described his marathon sixty-eight day boat trip in detail. The daily routine included reading from Mary's bible; tending to sick passengers; and writing poetry, weather observations, and descriptions of his meals and activities in his journal. He also wrote about a funeral onboard, and sightings of flying fish, sperm whales, and porpoises. The crew first saw land just below Monterey on June 6, 1850, and then all hell broke loose. The drunken captain was overpowered by the steerage passengers in a terrific struggle. Edwin recounted, "jumping from my berth I knocked him down - took the pistol from his hand - he rose & knocked out the lamp - the cry was a light & rope - they were in immediate requisition as well as the irons he was soon bound and all was safe." The second mate was made Captain and the passengers levied multiple charges against Benjamin Brockett, the former captain, including "habitual drunkenness" and "neglecting to discharge the duty of commander thus endangering the lives of the passengers & prolonging the voyage." The last few pages enumerate his expenses enroute ($482.35) and describe his initial, thrilled, reaction to the Chapula Valley, which his brother Joseph had leased. Joseph is represented in this collection by the letterbook he kept while serving in San Francisco and Utah Territory as Paymaster for the Army, 1864-1868. There are 96 pages of letters, most, as one would expect, involving the acquisition or dispersal of money. Also in this volume is "The Future of Green Acre," a six-page copy of a talk given in 1924, probably by Edwin's daughter Ivy Drew Edwards, describes this Baha'i school in Eliot, Maine. Two volumes clearly descended from the Crosby side of the family into the Drews. The autograph book (ca.1838-1848) of Maria Crosby, a sister of Alice, includes a long exhortation from her father about the value of modesty as well as the typical sentimental lines from friends and relatives. The volume of Alice's father, Aaron Crosby, is fascinating both for its substance and for how it was used. He began it in Cambridge, N.Y., 1831, and filled about 150 pages. There is a curious "Chronological table with numeral vowels &c" at the beginning - 1831, for instance, became "bktb" - but he soon reverted back to using numerical dates. Dated entries are arranged under various headings, with Miscellany being the most extensive and journalistic. Crosby further subdivided this section: "1838 Oct 12 Anatomical or Amputation This afternoon at 20 minutes past 4 commenced a most painful operation of takeing from the left breast of Mrs. Crosby a Tumor about the size of pullets egg which had put on a cancerous action, & with it the whole of the breast or mama by Doctor M. Stevenson, & brother Wm. Stevenson, the latter being the operator. The cutting and takeing up of the principal artery was performed in about 5 minutes and whole operation to the end of the last stich being 5 in number closeing up in close contact with each other the two sides of the semicircular incision of about 4 inches up & down and about 1 1/2 inches in width, at the center, 20 minutes." Sadly, his wife died the next May. Crobsy continued to keep his "Miscellany" until shortly before his own death in 1850; his last entry's subheading is "Buryal Speciffic directions for Interment." Family members continued to use the volume to record genealogical information about both the Crosbys and Drews. There are a number of printed certificates and forms for members of both families pasted in, as well as newspaper clippings. Another highlight is the 20 banknotes Crosby pasted in (under "Money," naturally), most of which were counterfeit - or came from defunct banks, and therefore "not spurious." An exquisite early quarter plate daguerreotype, unsealed in the original wooden frame with gilt paper matte, bears the rare plate mark of "Plumbe's Patent, Oct. 22, 1842", and allegedly depicts Joseph and Edwin Drew. This lovely image rounds out this fascinating family collection. PLEASE NOTE: THIS LOT WILL BE SOLD ON EBAY LIVE AUCTIONS BETWEEN 6:00-7:00pm EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME ON MAY 10, 2002. REGISTER NOW TO BID LIVE ONLINE THE DAY OF THE SALE! (EST 2500-3500)
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United States
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11:00 AM Day of Sale.
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