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2468

Jackson Creek,CA - Calaveras County - 1 September 1850 - Gold Rush Letter :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Historical Memorabilia Start Price:400.00 USD Estimated At:800.00 - 1,500.00 USD
Jackson Creek,CA - Calaveras County - 1 September 1850 - Gold Rush Letter :
lifornia. Crème, lined, lettersheet paper. Measures 7.25" x 9." Remnants remaining of the original red wax sealant. Some yellowing, one small tear, and some tape visible on left side of the letter. Watermark visible.

Markley’s father, David, apparently knew James Frazier Reed. Andrew came to California, first to Hangtown (now Placerville) and then to Jackson Creek, near Jackson, over the plains in 1850 and found that mining was not all it was advertised to be. Along the way, Andrew lost his “team and outfit, and . . . [found] the mines much poorer than expected.” Even though Andrew had settled in one of the richest ore areas in the Mother Lode, he apparently wasn’t having any luck at mining. He also lost his father’s letter of introduction he had written to Reed, so Andrew was taking it upon himself to write and introduce himself. He was hoping that Reed had a “clerkship” available for him.

If anyone knew about loss over the plains and arriving in California with nothing but the clothes on his back, James Reed did. Reed, a founding member of the Donner Party, came across the plains from Springfield, Illinois, through Utah, and over the Sierra Nevada Mountains starting four years earlier on April 14, 1846. The party, whose members eventually numbered 89, got stuck at Donner Lake in an early – September 4th – snow storm. That winter was very rough. Just before the snow storm hit, Reed had been banished from the group for knifing a man and killing him in a squabble over the oxen the man was beating. Thus, Reed made it to Sutter’s Fort without his family and returned to rescue them. It took the rescuers months to get all of the surviving party members out. In the end, forty-one of the party died while forty-eight survived. Reed and his family were among the most fortunate as all members survived the ghastly winter ordeal. They took in the surviving Donner children. Reed would go on to become a prominent and wealthy California settler.

While Andrew had gold as a reason to come west, Reed’s stated goal according to several histories written about him is vague. Some report the reason he left for California was because he thought his wife’s health would improve. Apparently Margret Reed had migraine headaches. Another source says that Reed had California fever, but in 1846, it is hard to understand what California fever was.
In 1846, California was under Mexican rule. Most of the land was in the hands of private families, called Californios, the government or the military. The Catholic Church’s land holdings had been secularized in 1834, so it was no longer holding vast areas of land – the government had granted much of the confiscated church land by 1846. There were very few urban centers in California. Monterey was its first capital and Los Angeles (pop. 2,228 in 1836), Villa de Branciforte and San Josè were first established to grow crops to supply the four military presidios [www.ci.la.ca.us/elp/media/mycity/MyCityPgs9_12.pdf]. Most of the land was used as pastoral ranch land, where ranchers raised cattle for the hide and tallow business that New England merchants spurred along. If one migrated to Mexican territory, in order to gain land, the migrant had to convert to Catholicism and then become a naturalized citizen before getting a land grant. Several Euro migrants also married into the most prominent and prestigious Californio families, thus cementing their status in Mexico. Thomas O. Larkin did marry a local woman, but did not become a naturalized citizen because he refused to convert to Catholicism. Thus, his children had land grants, but he did not. Many of Mariano Vallejo’s female relatives married Euro-Anglo men. Euro-Anglos made the process work for them. The ones who married Californio females usually had large families, so it is hard to imagine the marriage was for land and status only. The Mexican government started granting land in earnest from the 1830s onward. Most of the land grants covered land on the coast, and inland as far as Sacramento and up the valley to the Chico area. Historian Steven W. Hackel wrote that by 1845 there were 680 foreigners living in Mexican California, and he estimates in 1846 there were 7,000 foreigners residing in California. Not all were American, of course. So immigration to California was seen as monetarily advantageous and increasing [Hackel, 1997, 136-137]. The hide and tallow business may have been Reed’s version of California fever.

Those who had previously come to California for various reasons, such as trappers and sailors, took news about the abundance of land and its pastoral beauty back to their homelands. Those who stayed, such as Larkin and Dr. John Marsch, who came in 1836, wrote to others back in the states urging their friends and family members to migrate. There was an 1824 exhibit in London of Mexican Indian artifacts that heightened everyone’s interest about Mexico too. California did have its draw for some. Lots of people heard of California’s beauty, its weather, and the opportunities to become wealthy and more decided to immigrate as the years went by. The bulk of American immigration started in 1841.

The first group to come across the U. S. to California was the Bartleson-Bidwell party of thirty-two people in 1841. The Kelsey’s were in this group. The next, a group of twenty-five Anglos, was led by William Workman and John Rowland. John C. Fremont came next for the first time in the winter of 1843-44 crossing over the Sierra Nevada’s via the Carson Pass. In 1844, the Stevens-Murphy party of fifty-two people also crossed over the Sierra Nevada’s. Again in 1845, Fremont made a second trip west crossing into California at Walker Pass. Fremont was in California when the Mexican American War started. In April 1846, just as the Donner’s party was beginning its journey in Springfield, Illinois, the governor of California ordered all land held by non-naturalized foreigners to be returned, virtually expelling the foreigners. The American settlers who did not have citizenship held a meeting with Fremont and from there the “Bear Flag Revolt” occurred. After twenty-six days of revolt, the Americans took over. The Mexican army was not well supported in California, so with little effort, American troops were able to take control of California by July 11, 1846 when the U. S. flag was raised at Sutter’s Fort. It wasn’t so much that the Americans were victorious but that the Mexican protection of California was inept and greatly unorganized. This is the California to which the Donner-Reed party was headed.

It is not understood if the Donner party even knew that the war had begun. They did meet up with other people along the way but there is no way to ascertain what information the party knew regarding the war. By the time Reed made it to Sutter’s Fort, it was definitely an American territory. After rescuing his family, the Reeds’ lived with George C. Yount, an American who had a land grant in the Napa area, until they fully recovered from the ordeal. For awhile, Reed was the sheriff for the District of Sonoma. Later, the Reeds’ moved to San Josè where Reed worked as a custodian reclaiming an abandoned Mission San Josè orchard. When news of the discovery of gold at Coloma got out, Reed made his way to Hangtown and other mining areas and made his fortune in gold before the world rushed in. He returned to San Josè and began speculating on and purchasing property. Later, Reed would survey and subdivide land into lots, as Sutter would in Sutterville and John Sutter Jr. would in Sacramento, and put the land up for sale. Reed became a proponent of having the state capitol be in the town, purchased land, got a contract to build the capital building there but did not meet the completion deadline – the first floor was not done but all the other floors were. There was a flood that winter as well, and it was decided to move the capitol to some other city that was more civilized (ie – with paved, bricked, or planked streets) and less muddy. He was a member of the San Josè city council and the Chief of Police. Eventually, he supported building a Methodist Seminary in San Josè that ultimately moved to Stockton and became the prestigious University of the Pacific. Reed did not let the disastrous winter of 1846-1847 dampen his entrepreneurial spirit. He came to California with nothing but his clothes and family and made another fortune. If anyone could guide the ill prepared Andrew Markley, Reed could.
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