Microfilm of typescript letters from Hiram Dwight Pierce to his wife Sarah Jane Palmer, letters from Sarah to Hiram, notes from the Geneva Gazette, portions of Pierce's 1850 diary, and biographical notes and anecdotes by his grandson. The first few frames are of extracts of the Geneva Gazette from 1848-1849 recounting gold digging in California, specifically mentioning the Ontario Trojan Band and the Rensselaer County Exploring Company. The next portion of the film is entitled "Letters of a Forty-Niner, Hiram Dwight Pierce of Troy, N.Y. to his wife, Sarah Jane Pierce." The letters, written from March 1849-October 1850, recount Pierce's experiences traveling to California and digging for gold in the Maricopa area. Pierce gives detailed descriptions of sailing along the coast of Florida to Havana on the mail steamer Falcon of stopping in New Orleans of departing Chagres, Panama, on the steamer Orus, traveling across the Isthmus, and staying for several weeks in Panama while waiting for the Falcon to return (he eventually sailed to San Francisco on the Sylph in late July) of his stay in San Francisco, where he reflected on his religious convictions and noted the plurality of cultures around him ("You cannot name a County or an Island that is represented with all their peculiarity of dress and custom," he wrote to Sarah, "Some of them most ridiculous in the extreme" ) mining for gold at Mormon Island in August 1849 going to Maricopa in January 1850 ("I have felt very uneasy about being 7 ½ months from home and yet having done nothing for myself worth naming," he lamented) of gold mining at Washington Flat and Long Canyon and of returning to San Francisco in October 1850 and planning his voyage home. The next portion of the microfilm is entitled "Letters of Sarah Jane Pierce to her Husband, Hiram D. Pierce," and includes several letters Sarah sent to Hiram from May 1849-August 1850, mostly recounting conditions at home. All inquiries about this item should be directed to the H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Microfilm. San Marino, Calif. : Huntington Library Photographic Dept., 1946. 1 microfilm reel : negative 35 mm. Forms part of the Manuscripts Department's Mormon file, c.1805-1995. Hiram Dwight Pierce (1810-1866) was born in Copake, New York. He later moved to Troy where he married Sarah Jane Palmer in 1833. Pierce was a successful blacksmith and wagon maker and was also President of the Troy Fire Department and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. In 1849 he traveled to the California gold fields by way of Panama. He returned to New York in January 1851.
Pierce, Hiram Dwight, 1810-1866 Pierce, Sarah Jane Palmer Domestic relations--New York (State) Miners--California Voyages to the Pacific coast California--Description and travel California--History--1846-1850 Havana (Cuba)--Description and travel Maricopa (Calif.) Mormon Island (Calif.) New Orleans (La.)--Description and travel Panama--Description and travel Panama, Isthmus of (Panama)--Description and travel San Francisco (Calif.)--Description and travel Letters (correspondence) California 19th century. (aat) Letters (correspondence) New York 19th century. (aat) Letters (correspondence) Panama 19th century. (aat)
Source
Mormon Manuscripts at the Huntington Library Mormonism and the West, Huntington Digital Library
Provenance
Microfilm of typed copies loaned by Warren Travell, August 1946.
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