Rosario Curletti Collection of A. M. Ebbets Papers: Finding Aid
Finding aid prepared by Dixie Dillon, July 18, 2006.
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical
Gardens
© 2006
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2129
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
The Huntington Library. All rights reserved.
Title: Rosario Curletti Collection of A. M.
Ebbets Papers
Dates (inclusive): 1824-1964
Collection Number: mssHM 69651-69707
Creator:
Ebbets, A. M. (Arthur Mercein), 1830-1903.
Extent: 70 items in 2 boxes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2129
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains an 1849 sea voyage diary of A.M. Ebbets (1830-1903) chronicling
his trip to San Francisco, California,
and supplementary material about Ebbets. Nineteen pages of pencil drawings
by Arthur Ebbets, depicting scenes from his 1849 voyage, accompany the diary.
Language: English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Note: The letter by Elizabeth Whitney Putnam, HM 69705, may have publication
restrictions.
[Identification of item]. Rosario Curletti Collection of A. M. Ebbets Papers, The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Gift of Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., April 7, 2005.
Related Materials in the Huntington Library
The collection also originally included a photocopy of the Augustin W. Hale diary,
the original of which the Huntington holds in the Hale papers. Hale also sailed to
California on the Pacific in 1849, and the he and Ebbets were apparently friendly.
Details and references in the two collections overlap occasionally. The John Goodman
papers at the Huntington also overlap with the Curletti papers, specifically in the
folders discussing the ships Pacific and Tennessee. Rare book and print items
donated along with the Curletti collection were cataloged separately.
Biographical Note of Rosario Curletti
Rosario Andrea Curletti (1913-1986) was a
Southern California anthropologist, genealogist, historian and book collector. Her
main specialties were Santa Barbara history and the Chumash Indians. Curletti
began assembling this collection in the 1950s and made (unsuccessful) efforts to
have Arthur Ebbets’ diary published. She died in 1986.
Biographical Note of Arthur Ebbets
Arthur Mercein Ebbets (1830-1903) was born in New York on 18 January 1830 and came to San
Francisco at the age of 19, in 1849, on the ship
Pacific
(built in 1843). While on board the
Pacific,
Ebbets published a newspaper that was highly critical of the ship's first captain,
Hall J. Tibbits, whom many of the ship’s passengers considered nearly insane. Upon
the ship's arrival at Rio de Janeiro, the passengers appealed to the American consul
to have Tibbits removed. The consul complied, placing George T. Estabrook (or
Easterbrook) in command for the remainder of the voyage. Captain Tibbits contested
his dismissal and met the ship in San Francisco to resume command.
In San Francisco, Ebbets established himself first as a general merchant and land
developer. He later became an agent for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and for
Wells Fargo, and a coal merchant (in 1859). He participated in the vigilante
committees of 1851 and 1856, and also served in several minor political and
organizational offices. Ebbets made several trips back to the East, where he was
part of the mercantile company Brown, Ebbets, and Co. (in New York City). In San
Francisco, he erected and lived in one of the early city’s finest houses, which he
sold in 1901. He died on 5 May 1903.
Arthur Ebbets’ first wife, Charlotte “Lottie” White Penniman Ebbets came to
California in 1853 aboard the
Georgia and the
Tennessee, crossing the isthmus by land. She was either
already acquainted with Arthur (whom she married in 1854) or met him when she
boarded the
Georgia in New York, and mentions him in
one of her letters. After returning east for a time (possibly with Arthur), she made
the journey West again in 1855, this time on the
Oregon
with her infant son. Charlotte, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, was of
delicate health, and died in 1863. Only one of her children with Arthur, Charlotte
Penniman Ebbets, survived to adulthood. Arthur married his second wife,
Elizabeth Ann Stevenson, in 1864; they had four children. Elizabeth died in 1894.
This collection was donated in honor of Southern California anthropologist Rosario Curletti.
The collection consists of the 1849 sea voyage diary of Arthur Mercein Ebbets (121
pages) and supplementary material, including six letters by Charlotte White Penniman
Ebbets, written while during her 1853 voyage on the steamer
Tennessee (which ran aground near San Francisco); 14 folders of
biographical manuscripts about Arthur written by his daughter Charlotte Penniman
Ebbets; other family manuscripts, including family trees; and correspondence of
Rosario Curletti regarding the diary and letters. It was Charlotte Penniman Ebbets who
who supplied Rosario
Curletti with several items in the collection. Nineteen pages of pencil drawings
by Arthur Ebbets, depicting scenes from his 1849 voyage, accompany the diary. Seven
other early California and Panama items supplement the Ebbetts items, including
drafts of short stories or memoirs by K. V. Hastings (“A Visit to Acapulco,” “A Day
on Shipboard,” and “From Panama to Aspinwall”), a copy of a long letter by Elizabeth
Whitney Putnam detailing her journey west (she and her child sailed aboard the
Tennessee and the
Georgia on
the same voyage as Lottie Ebbets), and Spanish and English versions of the diary of
Pablo de la Portilla, a Mexican captain attached to Santa Barbara Presidio who led
an unsuccessful 1824 expedition against a group of Chumash Indians who had rebelled
against the San Buenaventura mission.
Finally, the collection originally included a photocopy of the Augustin W. Hale
diary, the original of which the Huntington holds in the Hale papers. Hale also
sailed to California on the
Pacific in 1849, and the he
and Ebbets were apparently friendly. Details and references in the two collections
overlap occasionally. In addition, the ships
Pacific
and
Tennessee are both discussed in detail in
the John Goodman Papers at the Huntington.
Organized alphabetically by manuscript author.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Curletti, Rosario
Andrea, 1913-1986.
Ebbets, A. M., (Arthur
Mercein), 1830-1903 -- Archives.
Ebbets, Elizabeth Ann
Stevenson, d. 1894.
Tibbits, Hall
J.
Georgia
(Steamer)
Oregon
(Steamboat)
Pacific
(Ship)
Tennessee (Steamer),
1848-1853.
Chumash Indians.
Frontier and pioneer life --
California.
Historians -- California --
Archives.
Merchants -- California.
Ocean travel -- 19th century.
Vigilance committees -- California --
San Francisco.
Voyages to the Pacific coast --
Personal narratives.
California -- History
-- 19th century -- Sources.
Callao (Callao, Peru)
-- Description and travel.
Horn, Cape (Chile) --
Description and travel.
Juan Fernández
Islands.
Lima (Peru) --
Description and travel.
Panama -- Description
and travel.
Panama, Isthmus of
(Panama) -- Description and travel.
Rio de Janeiro
(Brazil) -- Description and travel.
San Francisco (Calif.)
-- Description and travel.
San Francisco (Calif.)
-- History -- Sources.
San Francisco (Calif.)
-- Politics and government -- 19th century.
Santa Barbara (Calif.)
-- History -- Sources.
Biographies -- California.
Diaries -- 19th century.
Drawings -- 19th century.
Genealogical tables.
Letters (correspondence) -- 19th
century.
Letters (correspondence) -- 20th
century.
Poems -- California.
Short stories.
Ebbets, Charlotte Penniman, fl. 1950.
Ebbets, Charlotte White Penniman, d.
1863.
Hale, Augustin W., 1814-1902.
Hastings, K. V.
Portilla, Pablo de la, Captain, fl.
1819-1838.
Putnam, Elizabeth Whitney, fl. 1853.