Apron Full of Gold: The Letters of Mary Jane Megquier from San Francisco, 1849-1856

Description: Includes a frontis plus seven additional black and white plates. From the jacket blurb: ''According to family tradition, Mary Jane Megquier was the first white woman to cross the Isthmus of Panama during the Gold Rush. Whatever the truth of the tradition, the reader of the letters will remember her as the typical pioneer woman of the Great Migration. With unfailing courage and a saving sense of humor, she met fires, floods, vigilantes and housekeeping trials with undaunted spirit. From her tiny dwelling overlooking the busy bay of San Francisco her letters to her children bring to life the noisy, turbulent city, with its disasters and troubles matched by gay social affairs, theaters, concerts, dances, and occasional whiffs of scandal.'' BINDNG/CONDITION: black cloth with gilt spine text, paste-on vignette on the front board; a Very Good+ book, with a Very Good- dust jacket; publisher's price on the jacket flap is intact. 8vo (about 9.25 inches tall). 99 pages.