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Forest Hill,CA - Placer County - 23 March 1856 - Gold Rush Letter :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Historical Memorabilia Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 - 600.00 USD
Forest Hill,CA - Placer County - 23 March 1856 - Gold Rush Letter :
From Matthew Maus to his brother David D. Maus Esq. in Danville Pennsylvania.

Blue, lined lettersheet torn from the rest of the sheet. One page front and back. No damage other than the original tear. Very good condition. Watermark visible. No cover. Written on Easter Sunday.

Matthew is responding to his brother’s letter. In it, David told Matthew he was engaged. Matthew said he wants to be “there to [sic] the weding [sic].” He is not ready yet to come home but he is “tired of living a bachelors [sic] life here in the mountains.” As much as he wants to leave, Matthew says he “shall have to remain . . . [there] two years.” Given that he has plans for the next two years, he most likely will not be attending the wedding after all. Matthew gives really great descriptions of his mining work and what effect the current draught will have on mining efforts in the next year. His impression of the Sierra Nevada’s is that they are always snow covered no matter what time of the year it is. Apparently, Matthew enclosed a sketch with this letter, telling his brother to frame it. The subjects of the sketch are a Chinese fight that occurred in the area as well as “Indians, and miners prospecting in the mountains.”

Matthew shows up in the 1861 Placer County census as a miner. Another record reveals he married a woman named Carrie Spaulding in 1866 in Virginia City, Nevada. In the 1880 U. S. Census, Matthew, who is fifty by this time, is living in San Francisco claiming he is single but has a thirty year old married woman named Caroline and three children, Carrie (13), Charles (11), and Edward (9), all with the Maus last name, living with him as boarders at 124 Kearny Street. It seems he did not make it back to Pennsylvania for David's wedding.