Augustin W. Hale papers, 1775-1909 bulk (1830-1859).

ArchivalResource

Augustin W. Hale papers, 1775-1909 bulk (1830-1859).

The manuscripts consist of 1,112 items including business documents, legal documents, memoranda of letters written, stock certificates, receipts, and miscellaneous documents. The manuscripts document, in detail, the various business ventures of Augustin and his various business partners including Mark Hopkins. The manuscripts include business and financial records of the following companies: Magnetic Mining Company, New England Mining and Trading Company, San Joaquin Diving Bell Company, San Joaquin Railroad Company, Saucelito Water Company, Sierra Nevada Flour Mills, Stanislaus Central Bridge Company, and the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association. This group also contains material related to Trinity Church in San Francisco and Hale's voyage to California. The manuscripts also document Elisha Hale's business ventures, his inventions and patents. This material includes agreements, bills of lading, deeds, indentures, licenses, petitions, and powers of attorney. The manuscripts also deal with several lawsuits involving the Hale family and land ownership in New Jersey and New York. The collection contains 15 diaries, 11 of which are written by Augustin. His diaries illustrate his life and work from departure from New York in January 1849 to his mining and life in California in February 1851. Subjects in his diaries include his voyage to California, gold mining, gold discoveries, his encounters with Indians and his health conditions as well as Colonel Jonathan Stevenson, San Francisco, Sacramento, the New England Mining Trading Company, the Chinese in California, and the mining camps Shasta, Clear Creek and Mormon Island. The most significant of these diaries is the 217-page diary covering Augustin's departure from New York, his entire voyage, his experiences in Rio de Janeiro, and Callao and Lima, Peru, and his arrival in San Francisco. There are also two diaries by an unknown author who came overland to California in 1849 from Ohio. The author discusses the overland route to California, Hudspeth's Cutoff, William H. Warner, Peter Lassen and gold mining. The correspondence includes 3,102 items. About two-thirds of the correspondence relates to Elisha Hale and his business, inventions and patents. The remainder of the correspondence relates to Augustin and his life in California and Nevada from 1849 to 1894 (there are some letters from Augustin's life before his move to California). Subjects covered in the correspondence are: gold mining, including techniques and equipment; gold discoveries; conditions in the gold camps; fellow gold miners; the Episcopal Church and Trinity Church in San Francisco; Augustin's business ventures and financial problems; the Chinese in California; the San Francisco fire in May 1851; Vigilance Committees; the Comstock Lode; the American Civil War; and Abraham Lincoln. The correspondence also includes detailed descriptions of Big Bar, Chinese Camp, Clear Creek, Coloma, Grass Valley, Los Angeles, Michigan Bluff, Mormon Island, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Yankee Jim's, California as well as Gold Hill and Silver City, Nevada. There are also several pieces of correspondence from women living in California that discuss their experience living in mining towns. Notable participants include: John Carpenter Angell; August Belmont; Orville Hickman Browning; Nehemiah Bushnell; George Mifflin Dallas; Charles Goodyear; Lewis C. Gunn; Joseph Holt; John Henry Hopkins; Mark Hopkins; Douglass Houghton; D. Minor K. Johnson; James King; Bishop William Kip; John Marshall Krum; J. Pierpont Morgan; Antoine Perpigna; Isaac L. Requa; Lorenzo Sawyer; Origen S. Seymour; Reuben Sherwood; William Neely Thompson; Enos Thompson Throop; Robert Boyd Van Kleeck; Fernando Wood. The ephemera is made up of 1,011 items and includes business cards, miscellaneous printed items, broadsides, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, two albumen prints, receipts, an autograph album and recipes. Some of the ephemera relates to Augustin's voyage to California, his business and gold mining. There are 6 artifacts and 8 oversize items. These include maps, sketches, diagrams, a stamp of Augustin's name, a postal cancellation stamp invented by Augustin, a pictorial letter sheet depicting San Francisco, and Augustin's balance scale for weighing gold.

5,256 items.29 boxes.

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7088507

Related Entities

There are 36 Entities related to this resource.

Dallas, George Mifflin, 1792-1864

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ch0dh3 (person)

George Mifflin Dallas (July 10, 1792 – December 31, 1864) was an American politician and diplomat who served as mayor of Philadelphia from 1828 to 1829 and as the 11th vice president of the United States from 1845 to 1849. The son of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas, George Dallas attended elite preparatory schools before embarking on a legal career. He served as the private secretary to Albert Gallatin and worked for the Treasury Department and the Second Bank of the United Stat...

Warner, William Horace

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dr5pvh (person)

Bushnell, Nehemiah, 1813-1873.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6794bvz (person)

Requa, Isaac Lawrence, 1825-1905.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s78c0z (person)

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tz44c1 (person)

Abraham Lincoln (born February 12, 1809, Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky-died April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.) was the sixteenth President of the United States from 1861 until his death by assassination. He was the son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Thomas Lincoln, and Nancy Hanks. In 1816, Lincoln moved to Pigeon Creek, Indiana, where he worked on his family's farm. Following his mother's death two years later, he continued working on farms until moving with his father to New Sa...

Browning, Orville Hickman, 1806-1881

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qz2x8h (person)

From Quincy, Illinois served as state senator, 1836-1841 and state representative, 1842-1843, delegate to the anti-Nebraska convention in Bloomington, Ill. in 1856 and to the Republican National Convention in 1860, appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill Stephen A. Douglas' seat when he died, and appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Johnson. Formed a law firm in Washington, D.C. in 1863 and practice there until 1866. Returned to Quincy, Ill. in 1869 to practice there. From t...

Stevenson, J. D. (Jonathan Drake), 1800-1894

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qz2cqq (person)

Col. Stevenson was the commander of the First Regiment of New York Volunteers, known as Stevenson's Regiment, sent to Calif. during the Mexican War. From the description of J.D. Stevenson letter : San Francisco, Calif., to Isaac M. Baker : ALS, 1850 Oct. 4. (California Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 122381837 Stevenson was born Jan. 1, 1800 in NY; private secretary to NY Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, later accompanying him to Washington, DC, when Tompkins was electe...

Hale, Augustin W., 1814-1902.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jx19p5 (person)

Augustin Ward Hale, born January 13, 1814, grew up in New Jersey and New York. In his early life Augustin worked with his father Elisha Hale, a businessman and inventor. In January 1849 Augustin left his wife Jennette, and daughter Agness, to sail for California on the brig Pacific. He was a member of a joint venture called the New England Mining and Trading Company (Mark Hopkins was also a member of the company, which was disbanded shortly after its arrival in California). The ship...

Hale, Elisha.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jd7rxs (person)

Trinity Church (San Francisco, Calif.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j44sf1 (corporateBody)

Sherwood, R. (Reuben), 1789-1856

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v43q34 (person)

Holt, Joseph, 1807-1894

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6h41sn8 (person)

Joseph Holt, 1807-94, American public official, judge advocate general of the U.S. army (1862-75). A native of Kentucky, he became a well-known lawyer and prominent Democratic politician. In 1857, President Buchanan appointed him commissioner of patents in 1857, and in 1859 he became Postmaster General. In the beginning of 1861, before the outbreak of the Civil War, he was Secretary of War. A staunch opponent of the secession movement, Holt was instrumental in preventing Kentucky from seceding. ...

Kip, William Ingraham, 1811-1893

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6np2b83 (person)

First Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of California. From the description of William Ingraham Kip papers, 1837-1974. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 659509525 ...

Throop, Enos Thompson, 1784-1874

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63n2m5r (person)

From Albany, New York a lawyer, judge, congressman, and governor of New York. From the description of Letter, Dec. 11, 1862. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library). WorldCat record id: 55941340 Lawyer, judge, U.S. Congressman, and Governor of New York; served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1815-1816, and as Governor of New York, 1829-1833. From the description of Papers, 1829-1832 (inclusive) (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155038391 Enos Thompson ...

Gunn, Lewis C. (Lewis Carstairs), 1813-1892

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r819vq (person)

New England Mining and Trading Company.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sv3pm2 (corporateBody)

Hopkins, John Henry, 1792-1868

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64q80c8 (person)

Episcopal bishop of Vermont. From the description of Letter, 1851. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155474749 John Henry Hopkins was born in 1792 in Ireland. He became the first Protestant Episcopal bishop of Vermont. Hopkins published over fifty books, pamphlets and sermons. His published lecture, Slavery: Its Religious Sanction, Its Political Dangers, and the Best Mode of Doing it Away (1851) averred that slavery was not a sin but that its abolition was crucial and should be...

King, James, 1822-1856

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6281jp5 (person)

Houghton, Douglass, 1809-1845

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hq45h1 (person)

The Michigan Geological Survey was created by Public Act 20 of 1837. Its purpose was to conduct a geological and mineralogical survey of the state. The state legislature appointed Douglass Houghton the first state geologist (1837). In 1921, the state legislature established the Department of Conservation, and the Michigan Geological Survey became part of that department (Public Act 17 of 1921). The Department of Conservation established the Geological Survey Division circa 1947. In 1968, the dep...

Van Kleeck, R. B. (Robert Boyd), 1810-1880

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rz27v5 (person)

Pacific (Brig)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tv0h77 (corporateBody)

Krum, John Marshall, 1810-1883.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vb13pm (person)

Belmont, August, 1813-1890

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d50wbh (person)

American banker and financier, U.S. minister to the Netherlands, and a leading Democratic political leader. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he vigorously supported the Union and helped raise the first German regiment sent from New York City. Daniel Edgar Sickles was a U.S. Representative from the State of New York (1857-1861 and 1893-1895). From the description of August Belmont letter, undated. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 711208279 Banker and diplomat. ...

Wood, Fernando, 1812-1881

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60v8ndq (person)

American politician. From the description of Autograph letter signed : New York, to an unidentified recipient, 1867 Nov. 30. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270583855 From the description of Autograph letter signed : Washington, to G.L. Ford, 1864 Jun. 21. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270583848 Mayor of New York, N.Y., and U.S. representative of New York. From the description of Fernando Wood correspondence, 1859 December 1. (Unknown). WorldCat record i...

Angell, John Carpenter, 1818-1904.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qn6bbs (person)

John Carpenter Angell graduated from Yale College in 1847, spent a year traveling in the interests of the American Journal of Science for Professor Benjamin Silliman, and in 1849 sailed for California by way of Cape Horn. He arrived in San Francisco in the summer of 1849 and after visiting Sacramento traveled to Oregon. From the description of John Carpenter Angell family correspondence, 1825-1859. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 82377999 From the description of John Carpente...

Thompson, William Neely, b.1819.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cd0m35 (person)

William Neely Thompson was born on October 14, 1819 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He came to California on May 18th, 1849 on the ship the Grey Eagle. He joined the Society of California Pioneers on September 8, 1853. His occupation on their records is listed as "Miner", and his address as New York, although there is no dated to this record. He was part of the firm Blackburn & Thompson in San Francisco (c.1850), that appears to have been a lumber or building company. He also appears to have ...

Sawyer, Lorenzo, 1820-1891

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60c5v36 (person)

Hopkins, Mark, 1813-1878

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r508pn (person)

Mark Hopkins was one of the "Big Four" in the Central Pacific Railroad. From the description of Mark Hopkins letter : Sacramento, Calif. to William N. Seet, Gold Hill, Nev. : ALS, 1865 Nov 1. (University of California, Berkeley). WorldCat record id: 52394361 ...

Johnson, D. Minor K.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vd9t4v (person)

Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6348pxj (person)

Collector. From the description of John Pierpont Morgan collection of signers of the Declaration of Independence, 1761-1803. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79448959 Financier, industrial organizer, and art collector. Born in 1837 in Hartford, John Pierpont Morgan was educated in the U.S. and Europe before embarking on a career as a banker. From his first position as an unsalaried clerk at the New York banking firm of Duncan, Sherman & Company, Morgan went on to become a ...

Tuolumne Hydraulic Association.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6z09898 (corporateBody)

Stanislaus Central Bridge Company.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rg1v23 (corporateBody)

Lassen, Peter, 1800-1859

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65f0644 (person)

Perpigna, A. (Antoine)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vb13ck (person)

Goodyear, Charles, 1800-1860

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jw8sjg (person)

Epithet: architect, of Mafeking British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000766.0x00007f ...

Seymour, Origen Storrs, 1804-1881

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69c7hf3 (person)