GOOD NEWS!!! It turns out that the buyer of that auction was none other than the Guilford Historical Society! My buddy Wilma didn't realize that my ancestor had been mentioned in them. She forwarded me the transcription of the letter that mentions him specifically and the other transcriptions will be forthcoming so that I can look through them for clues as to his business dealings in California. *whew!* I had envisioned these letters having fallen into the hands of a scrapbooker and turned into placemats!
Here is the letter that concerns my ancestor John Bradbury. This was written just two days after his death aboard the Jenny Lind. The transcription was taken down using the spelling in the letter.
San Francisco April 13, 1853
Dear father. I have a fiew lasure moments just now. My folks have gone to dinner. It is now five oclock in the after noon. I have to tende store some of the time. You thought that I could not do business to home well enough for you. But strangers don’t think so. I could not get away from them. I like them very much. I have to work hard some of the time then again not so hard. We have gone out of the flour business intirely, for it won’t pay. We are in the liquor business as large as was in the flour. I am well as usual, fat as a pig. Nelson is a driving dray doing very well. This is a larg Country. I don’t think that it will ever be fenced in for the most of the folks get what they can & go home. We have had a hard blow here. I mean our Guilford folks last Monday in the afternoon. Uncle Ben & John Bradbury, Cale Winsor was coming down the river & the boyler bursted & by the meanes killed C Winsor & J Bradbury. What a site they was. I went down to the boat & helped fetch them of. Nel Dimac feels very bad. It was hard, but you know that we have got to go when our time comes. We don’t know anything about that, so we must look out for the present. I can’t write much this time. I will write again in a fiew days. Edwin Haynes is up in the mines. Chapisc is here. I can’t tel how long I shall stay here in this Country. But I shall stay as long as it pays. When I can’t make eny thing, I shall start for some other country & I can’t tel whare that will be. But I shall do for the best. You know that I have bought $9 worth of clothes since I landed here. So you can tell the boys I am not spending my money foolish. It cost something for bord. I have paid $300 for bord since I came here & not lived eny better then I did at home. So you can see that it is something of a country I like vary well. Mr. Newton is here. I don’t know what he come here fore & I guess he don’t. He has not done eny thing as yet. I must close. I guess you will think this letter was wrote in a hurry & it was, for I did not have time to write all I wanted to. So I will write you again in a fiew days.
So Good By
Stephen A Sheldon
To Benjamin Sheldon
