E.B.Pratt. Autograph Letter Signed. Boston, Mar.13, 1849. To Guy Phelps, [Conn. Life Insurance Co.], Hartford, Conn.
About life insurance for two famous Forty-Niners who were about to depart for California: “…Augustus Elliott ind. by Pol. No. 2660, goes to Califa. in Barque Lagrange...John Webber Jr. insd. by Pol. No. 1401 is going to California over land and wants a Permit; he is in a hurry for it as he starts shortly…”
A year after Elliott reached California, he organized his Atlantic and Pacific Express Company to carry mail and packages between the east and west coasts of America, personally accompanying each shipment by steamer, across the Isthmus, from San Francisco to New York and back again, a “superior advantage” especially for those who wished to send gold dust to eastern banks. Offering such illustrious references as the US Senators from Massachusetts and the first federal official in San Francisco, he soon added the service of assisting emigrant families to make the trip “on most favorable terms”. This was more than a year before Henry Wells organized the Wells, Fargo Company to extend his eastern Express service to California.
Unlike Elliott, who soon sailed for the Isthmus of Panama, Captain John Webber, Jr. a heroic veteran of the Mexican-American War, was selected to lead the 50 men of the “California Mutual Protection Association” overland to the Gold Fields. Well-equipped, with a dozen other military veterans in uniform, four musicians, “two black servants and six dogs”, they left Boston on March 19, a week after this letter was written, their six month journey on the Oregon Trail recorded in a diary now held by the Bancroft Library. By the time Webber – portrayed as a U.S.Grant-type soldier in the Discovery Channel dramatization “Gold Fever” – reached Utah on July 31, only four of his group remained. They did not reach Sacramento until September.