The Gold Rush Letters of J. D. B. Stillman

Limited Edition. One of 2350 copies. Original publisher's beige cloth binding with gilt lettering on spine and small gilt decoration of a hand writing with a quill on the front cover. Custom beige paper dust jacket with cut-out windows revealing front cover illustration and spinal lettering included. Dust jacket protected in a paper-backed Mylar sleeve. Gilt lettering on title page. Illustrated endpapers. Paper advertisement from the American West laid in. 7 1/2" x 11." Seventy-four pages, complete. A few black-and-white illustrations, complete. Pages are virtually pristine and intact except for light age toning. Covers are virtually pristine and intact. Corners are sharp and not bumped. Binding is tight. Dust jacket is clean and intact except for light age toning and slight wear to extremities. A Fine book in a Fine custom dust jacket. This book contains the printed text of the Gold Rush Letters originally written by Jacob D. B. Stillman (1819-1888), an American surgeon and personal physician to Leland Stanford. He later left the medical profession and became a viticulturist and settled near Redlands, California. Stillman's Gold Rush Letters span the period from August 15, 1849 to October 19, 1850. In this timeframe of a little over a year, Stillman vividly recounts the many events he witnessed and experienced in California. Among the events and subjects he writes about are the city of Sacramento, traveling on the Sacramento River, seeing the Marysville Buttes, the natural beauty of California, mining camp life, the hopes and destitution of many gold seekers, interactions with Indigenous Peoples, operating a hospital in Sacramento (possibly the first in the city), treating patients at the hospital, the calamitous Sacramento flood of January 1850, the Sacramento squatters' riots in summer 1850, and California being admitted as a state in the Union. Introduction by Kenneth Johnson. Back colophon: "The book was designed by the publisher, printed by George Waters of San Francisco, and bound by Filmer Brothers - Taylor & Taylor of San Francisco. The typeface for the text and picture captures is Linotype Baskerville, composed by Hazeltime Typesetting, Inc., of Oakland, California. The display typefaces are Steelplate Text Shaded, Bulmer and Baskerville, handset. The paper is Curtis Rag. The cloth is Bolton buckram, made by Columbia Mills. The edition was limited to 2,350 copies.".…