Beschreibung:

(California – San Francisco Gold Rush pioneer) Letter from a young New England emigrant to New Orleans Author: Phelps, Abner Place Published: New Orleans Date Published: June 30, 1832 Description: Autograph Letter Signed. 3 pp. +stampless address leaf. To Gilman Marston, Mendon Academy, Mainfield, New Hampshire. Phelps describes his experiences after moving from New England to New Orleans. He had first taken a job teaching school “from six in the morning till nine in the evening. Very few of my scholars speak English, but [only] French and Spanish. I have a hard task as they are very ungovernable fellows. I shall however relinquish this employment in the fall and commence the practice of law.” The temperature had already risen to 96 degrees and “most of the northern merchants have left the city” for the summer, leaving the streets to “appear desolate and forsaken.” He had already suffered from Yellow Fever and “I now consider myself acclimated” to the unhealthy climate, though “I am not without apprehensions for my health”. He then offers a hint about why he would be willing, 17 years later, to join the Gold Rush to California: He had found “the advantages of traveling… much greater than I had anticipated”, having “corrected” some of his opinions and prejudices and “given me a better acquaintance with all the intricacies and varieties of the human character. I have spent some time in Mexico…”, a “beautiful and interesting country”, which he liked “much better than Louisiana”, where the government, left over from Spanish colonial days, persisted in “sheltering despotism.” This letter was written to Phelps’ school fellow and close friend Gilman Marston, later a Civil War Union General and U. S. Senator from New Hampshire. Despite an abiding interest in the life of Abner Phelps by Judge William Newson – father of the current Governor of California – still little is known about the pioneering San Francisco lawyer. He is best remembered for building the house now registered as a National Historical Landmark as the oldest house in San Francisco. Several Phelps diaries are held by Tulane University, but they do not begin until 1837, after he was settled in New Orleans as a lawyer and controversial politician, and do not cast much light on some of the inaccurate claims about his early life as well as the romantic legend of his rebuilding a Louisiana mansion in California to please his newlywed wife. This appears to be the earliest known Phelps letter, written at age 27. Condition: Handwriting heavily faded; good. Item#: 347032 Headline: San Francisco pioneer writes about New Orleans