.jpg?w=1)
GOLD RUSH: MURIETA, Joaquin (c. 1829-1853) – DUNNING, Benjamin P. Autograph letter signed (“Benjamin P. Dunning”), to his mother in Campbell, Maine, Nevada City (Calif.), 23 September 1853.
Details
GOLD RUSH: MURIETA, Joaquin (c. 1829-1853) – DUNNING, Benjamin P. Autograph letter signed (“Benjamin P. Dunning”), to his mother in Campbell, Maine, Nevada City (Calif.), 23 September 1853.
Three pages, 245 x 194mm, bifolium. Minor dampstain to address panel.
A California gold prospector offers a vivid, contemporary account of the capture and killing of Joaquin Murieta, the “Robin Hood of El Dorado.” Offered with period photographs of both the author and recipient of the letter. An account of the capture of Murieta and his gang, as told by Benjamin Dunning, a gold prospector from Maine, writing from Nevada City, California. After reporting on several transactions involving mining claims, he reports having seen “...The head of Joquin [sic] and the hand of three finger[e]d Jack the great rob[b]ers and pirets [sic] have bin Nevada and I talked with the men by whom they was taken...” According to the men with whom he spoke, “they took them in the morning while a sleep there was 7 of the rob[b]ers together when they was found...” While attempting to sneak up on the party, they awoke one of the bandits, known as Three-Fingered Jack, who warned the rest, including Murieta, who “ordered his band all to run which they did but was pursued... Joquin [sic] was cut off from his pistols and horses saddell [sic] and when discovering that he mounted his horse bare backed, and ran his horse as fast as he could lying down on his horse and hiding his head firs[t] on one side of the horses neck and then on the other to prevent being shot...” Murieta’s pursuers finally resolved to shoot the horse in the legs, and “Joquin was obliged to jump of and run but was soon over haled[sic] by his enemy who told him to surrender but he would not but still tried to get to his pistols and he having a knife in his hand they d[a]re not take a hold of him therefore was obliged to shoot him dead...” Three-Fingered Jack suffered a similar fate soon afterwards, while two others were taken prisoner. The California Rangers who killed the outlaws, took Murieta’s head, together with Three-Fingered Jack’s hand, and preserved them in a jar of alcohol, and placing them on exhibit as proof. The preserved relics were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. [With:] Two sixth-plate ambrotypes housed in brass mats, one of which is identified as “Benj. Dunning,” the author of the present letter, and the other as “Hiram Dunning,” the letter’s recipient.
Three pages, 245 x 194mm, bifolium. Minor dampstain to address panel.
A California gold prospector offers a vivid, contemporary account of the capture and killing of Joaquin Murieta, the “Robin Hood of El Dorado.” Offered with period photographs of both the author and recipient of the letter. An account of the capture of Murieta and his gang, as told by Benjamin Dunning, a gold prospector from Maine, writing from Nevada City, California. After reporting on several transactions involving mining claims, he reports having seen “...The head of Joquin [sic] and the hand of three finger[e]d Jack the great rob[b]ers and pirets [sic] have bin Nevada and I talked with the men by whom they was taken...” According to the men with whom he spoke, “they took them in the morning while a sleep there was 7 of the rob[b]ers together when they was found...” While attempting to sneak up on the party, they awoke one of the bandits, known as Three-Fingered Jack, who warned the rest, including Murieta, who “ordered his band all to run which they did but was pursued... Joquin [sic] was cut off from his pistols and horses saddell [sic] and when discovering that he mounted his horse bare backed, and ran his horse as fast as he could lying down on his horse and hiding his head firs[t] on one side of the horses neck and then on the other to prevent being shot...” Murieta’s pursuers finally resolved to shoot the horse in the legs, and “Joquin was obliged to jump of and run but was soon over haled[sic] by his enemy who told him to surrender but he would not but still tried to get to his pistols and he having a knife in his hand they d[a]re not take a hold of him therefore was obliged to shoot him dead...” Three-Fingered Jack suffered a similar fate soon afterwards, while two others were taken prisoner. The California Rangers who killed the outlaws, took Murieta’s head, together with Three-Fingered Jack’s hand, and preserved them in a jar of alcohol, and placing them on exhibit as proof. The preserved relics were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. [With:] Two sixth-plate ambrotypes housed in brass mats, one of which is identified as “Benj. Dunning,” the author of the present letter, and the other as “Hiram Dunning,” the letter’s recipient.