Details For Cover ID# 30400

San Francisco April 9. Black manuscript postmark with matching "40" rate on bluish folded letter to New York.

April 9th was the original expected departure of the maiden voyage of the PMSS Oregon from San Francisco, actual departure April 12, 1849.

FIRST EASTBOUND CONTRACT MAIL SAILING CARRIED BY THE PACIFIC MAIL STEAMSHIP CO.

The letter is datelined "U.S.S. St. Marys' Monday April 9 1849" and reads, in part:

"…I dare say you have already heard flaming accounts of this wonderful gold region…it is not to think of emigrating to California as it is already very thickly peopled and I am confident that in the course of two or three months it will be completely overcrowded…the county is really in a dreadful state. There being no kind of government at the mines murders are daily committed for the sake of very trifling articles…I have been once flogged and it so discouraged me that I should have run away but that I was afraid of the second…Edward Meeks, Direct your letter as follows Edwd Meeks U.S. Ship St. Marys Pacific Squadron"

Pictured in Letters of Gold as the frontispiece for the book.

The March, 2015 issue of Western Express contained an article by Rick Mingee regarding the San Francisco provisional postal markings of 1849 (manuscripts and straight line handstamps). The Mingee census records a total of nine manuscripts (one from March 15, four from April 9, one from April 17, one from May 1, and two from June 20). The example presented here is SF MS5 per the Mingee census.

Ex Milgram