PBA Galleries

Important map of the California Gold Region, from Monterey and Tulare counties in the south, to Klamath and Siskiyou in the north, with a portion of Nevada (called Utah) in the east. There is a "Table of Distances from the Capital Sacramento City to the principal towns" in the upper right corner, and at center right is a table of "Population of California 300,000” giving the populations of various towns and cities, with San Francisco leading at 50,000. Wheat, while not listing the 1854 first issue, does describe this 1855 second issue, noting that “George Holbrook Baker was born in Boston on March 9, 1827, his grandfathers having been revolutionary soldiers… Baker was a student at the National Academy of Design when gold was discovered in California, and he left Boston on January 8, 1849, arriving in San Francisco on May 28. He engaged in mercantile pursuits, operated an `express’ to the high diggings of the Middle Fork of the Feather River, and took a trip to Oregon and return, but finally settled in Sacramento where he engaged in editing and publishing…and his maps, lithographs and woodcuts of California scenes were much in demand…” The map is lithographed by Fishbourne, San Francisco. This copy of the lettersheet has the second and third pages blank, but on the fourth page is a brief letter from a miner facing grave literary challenges: "May the 18th, 1856, I tak my pen in hand to in form you that I am wall at this prusing tim and hop this few lins well find you in the sam pelasing. I am to work in indain Caniin [Indian Canyon] 3 mial from iowa hill we have vary doll times... Ex ques me for i wont you to treck your leters to iowa City California. nomore at this pressing tim but my respacks to you and reast all. John Umbough to Susan Umbough." Iowa City, later named Iowa Hill, in Placer County, is so named because miners from Iowa discovered gold there in 1853. Indian Canyon, more properly Indian Creek, is a stream flowing into the North Fork of the American River. Baird, California Pictorial Lettersheets, 145a; Wheat, Maps of the California Gold Region, 273.