Three Letters from Thomas F. Dingley of San Francisco, Dated 1857 and 1861

San Francisco: 1857 & 1861. Three manuscript letters, totaling 12 pages, two measuring 8.25 x 5.25”, dated 1861, and one 8.25 x 6.5”, dated 1857. The letters were sent by Thomas F. Dingley of San Francisco, to his sister in Maine. According to census records, Dingley was in the grocery business. The letters mainly discuss family matters, including news of Thomas’s siblings William and Charles, also in San Francisco, Charles’ marriage to Hannah Dingley, the difficulty of writing letters, the desire to visit family back in New England, etc. There are also snippets speaking generally about the difficult life in California, as well as a couple more specific tidbits about growing a fruit garden, the boarding house Thomas lived in, and his feelings about the outbreak of the Civil War. One of the letters contains a page contributed by Thomas’s new sister-in-law, Hannah, in which she expresses a desire to correspond with her distant family in Maine. In very good condition with some creasing, toning and foxing. Some excerpts follow:

“Oh I would like to see you very much, for I talk much father than I can write, I often think will ever the time come when we can meet again. I have been striving very hard ever since I came to this country to make something and come home on a visit to see my friends, but there is many ups & downs here, it seems sometimes ones lot is cast and it hard to change them…Laura says she never knew what work was until she came to California, some do well, others just the same as it is at home, make a living by hard work…” (Thomas F. Dingley, November 8, 1861)

“I took up about one hundred acres of land on the lead set me out a fruit garden two years ago, my trees have got to bearing some fruit. I have some cows so I keep old bachelor hall.” (Thomas F. Dingley, Nov. 10, 1861)

“Laure makes William a very good wife, she does her own work, & has got three boarders, beside me, help is quite high here girls get from $30 to $40 dollars a month…” (Thomas F. Dingley, May 3, 1857)

“You are having very sad times at home since war which is the most horrid of all wars I have a hope the Government will be successful and crush out the rebellion, and it may never more arise” (Thomas F. Dingley, Nov 10, 1861)

“It is so pleasant to think, although friends are separated so far and are denied the pleasure of seeing and conversing by word of mouth, yet we have the privilege of writing as much and often as we like, which seems to lessen the distance between us.” (Hannah B. Dingley, Nov 10, 1861). Item #12633

Price: $500.00