Collection context
Summary
- Abstract:
- This collection contains the papers of Augustin Ward Hale (1814-1902), as well as family members in New York, New Jersey, California, and Nevada, with the bulk dating from 1830 to 1859. Manuscripts chiefly reflect Hale's business ventures in California, including the business and financial records of the following companies: Magnetic Mining Company, New England Mining and Trading Company, San Joaquin Diving Bell Company, San Joaquin Railroad Company, Saucelito Water Company, Sierra Nevada Flour Mills, Stanislaus Central Bridge Company, and the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association. Correspondence and documents also relate to Hale's father, businessman and inventor Elisha Hale. Correspondence also relates to Augustin and his life in California and Nevada mining towns from 1849 to 1894.
- Extent:
- 15.6 Linear Feet (29 boxes, 8 folders, 2 volumes)
- Language:
- English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item]. Augustin W. Hale Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains the papers of Augustin Ward Hale (1814-1902), as well as family members in New York, New Jersey, California, and Nevada, with the bulk dating from 1830 to 1859.
The papers consist of the following sections:
Manuscripts
The manuscripts consist of 1,112 items including business documents, legal documents, memoranda of letters written, stock certificates, receipts, and miscellaneous documents. Most categories are divided by person of origin and then business name and document/manuscript type. The manuscripts document, in detail, the various business ventures of Augustin and his business partners including Mark Hopkins and Warren S. Smith. The manuscripts include business and financial records of the following companies: Magnetic Mining Company, New England Mining and Trading Company, San Joaquin Diving Bell Company, San Joaquin Railroad Company, Saucelito Water Company, Sierra Nevada Flour Mills, Stanislaus Central Bridge Company, and the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association. This group also contains material related to Trinity Church in San Francisco and Hale's voyage to California including lists of items Hale purchased for the trip; a daily log of the longitude and latitude of the Pacific; and labels for items collected by Hale on his voyage and while mining in California (the items no longer accompany the labels and their location is unknown). Augustin's Memoranda of Letters Written contains summaries of the letters he wrote, including letters that are not in the collection. The manuscripts also document Elisha Hale's business ventures, his inventions and patents. This material includes agreements, bills of lading, deeds, indentures, licenses, patent documents, petitions, sketches, diagrams, and powers of attorney. The manuscripts also deal with several lawsuits involving the Hale family and land ownership in New York; one of the lawyers working with the family's lawsuit in Illinois was Abraham Lincoln.
Diaries
The collection contains 15 diaries, 11 of which are written by Augustin (almost all have complete typescripts). His diaries illustrate his life and work from his departure from New York in January 1849 to his mining and life in California in February 1851. Subjects in his diaries include his voyage to California, gold mining, gold discoveries, his encounters with Indians and his health problems as well as Colonel Jonathan Stevenson, San Francisco, Sacramento, the New England Mining Trading Company, the Chinese in California, and the mining camps Happy Valley, Shasta, Clear Creek and Mormon Island. The most significant of these diaries is the 217-page diary covering Augustin's departure from New York, his entire voyage on the Pacific and his arrival in San Francisco. This diary, which has a complete 164-page typescript, includes details about the voyage, conditions on the ship, conflicts between the passengers and Captain H. J. Tibbitts (who was replaced with Captain George T. Estabrook in Rio de Janeiro), as well as Augustin's experiences in Rio de Janeiro, and Callao and Lima, Peru. There are two diaries by an unidentified author who came overland to California in 1849 from Ohio. The author discusses the overland route to California, Benoni Hudspeth, John J. Myers, Hudspeth's Cutoff, William H. Warner, Peter Lassen and gold mining.
Correspondence
The correspondence includes 3,107 items and is arranged alphabetically by author then addressee. About two-thirds of the correspondence relates to Elisha Hale and his business, inventions and patents. Several pieces of correspondence are in French and German, some of which have English translations. The remainder of the correspondence relates to Augustin and his life in California and Nevada from 1849 to 1894 (there are some letters from Augustin's life before his move to California). Subjects covered in the correspondence are: gold mining in California and Nevada, including techniques and equipment; gold discoveries; conditions in the gold camps; fellow gold miners; the Episcopal Church and Trinity Church in San Francisco; Augustin's business ventures and financial problems; Isaac Lawrence Requa; the Mexican War and Zachary Taylor; the Chinese in California; the San Francisco fire in May 1851; Vigilance Committees; the Comstock Lode; the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. The correspondence also includes detailed descriptions of Big Bar, Chinese Camp, Clear Creek, Coloma, Grass Valley, Happy Valley, Los Angeles, Michigan Bluff, Mormon Island, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Yankee Jim's, California as well as Gold Hill and Silver City, Nevada. There are also several pieces of correspondence from women living in California that discuss their experiences in mining towns; these authors are Louise Colburn, Emily Mather, Cathe Sleeper, Mary Thompson, Elizabeth Van Winkle, and Margaret Voorhees. Most of Augustin's correspondence is accompanied by complete typescripts. Notable participants include: John Carpenter Angell; August Belmont; Orville Hickman Browning; Nehemiah Bushnell; George Mifflin Dallas; Charles Goodyear; Lewis C. Gunn; Joseph Holt; John Henry Hopkins; Mark Hopkins; Douglass Houghton; D. Minor K. Johnson; James King; Bishop William Kip; John Marshall Krum; J. Pierpont Morgan; Antoine Perpigna; Isaac L. Requa; Lorenzo Sawyer; Origen S. Seymour; Reuben Sherwood; William Neely Thompson; Enos Thompson Throop; Robert Boyd Van Kleeck; Fernando Wood.
Ephemera
The ephemera is made up of 1,006 items and includes business cards, broadsides, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, two albumen prints, receipts, an autograph album, recipes and miscellaneous printed items. Subjects covered in the ephemera are: Augustin's voyage to California, his businesses, gold mining, Colonel Jonathan Stevenson and Abraham Lincoln. There are also complete copies of three periodicals in the newspaper clippings including The Mohawk Courier (Little Falls, New York), St. George's Chronicle (Grenada), and the Daily Evening Transcript (Boston). There is also a front page from The Golden Era (San Francisco). Also included in the ephemera is the foot from the albatross Augustin killed and attempted to stuff during his voyage to California.
Artifacts and Oversize Items
There are 6 artifacts and 8 oversize items. These include a stamp of Augustin's name, the stamp for the Stanislaus Central Bridge Company stock certificates, postal cancellation stamps invented by Augustin, and Augustin's balance scale and weights for weighing gold as well as a pictorial lettersheet depicting San Francisco, maps, and sketches and diagrams of Elisha Hale's inventions.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Augustin Ward Hale (1814-1902), born January 13, 1814, grew up in New Jersey and New York. In his early life Augustin worked with his father Elisha Hale, a businessman and inventor. In 1841, Augustin married Jennette Van Kleeck; they had one daughter, Agness. In the summer of 1846, Augustin traveled to Trinidad to sell his father's patents. In 1848, before departing for California, Augustin had his wife committed to the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum and his young daughter, who showed signs of physical and mental disabilities, put in a foster home. In January 1849 Augustin sailed for California on the brig Pacific. He was a member of a joint venture called the New England Mining and Trading Company (Mark Hopkins was also a member of the company, which was disbanded shortly after its arrival in California). After stops in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Callao, Peru, the ship reached San Francisco in August; Augustin immediately traveled to Sacramento City and then to the mining camp Mormon Island. Along with mining, Augustin spent the 1850s investing in various business ventures, most of which failed. In 1851, Augustin created the Saucelito Water Company, one of his more successful businesses. After a profitable year he sold the company and invested in other businesses including the San Joaquin Railroad Company, Magnetic Mining Company (also called the Tuolumne Quartz Mining Company), San Joaquin Diving Bell Company, Sierra Nevada Flour Mills, and the Tuolumne Hydraulic Association. Most notable of these companies is the Stanislaus Central Bridge Company, which was established in 1852 to build an iron suspension bridge above the Stanislaus River. The company directors had not yet approved the completion of the bridge and were insisting that additional cables were needed, when, on November 19, 1853, the bridge collapsed as a wagon and team of horses were crossing it. Augustin and his partners had to pay the company's debts with their own money.
Augustin had long been involved with the Episcopal Church in California and more specifically Trinity Church in San Francisco, and in 1854, he helped convince Dr. William Ingraham Kip, of Albany, New York, to come out west. Kip took over Trinity Church and became the first Episcopal bishop of California. By 1855, Augustin was back in the mines, including Michigan Bluff and Big Bar, but this time he also worked as an engineer constructing flumes, waterwheels and pumps. In 1857, Augustin returned to the east to visit his family. After his wife's death in March 1858, Augustin returned to California and tried his hand at bee keeping. Between 1860 and 1862, Augustin was in Silver City and Gold Hill, Nevada where he was participating in the opening of the Comstock Lode as an engineer for several mines. Not much is known about Hale's life after 1862. In 1874 he married a woman named Laura and in 1883 they were living in Pomona, California. They moved to Los Angeles in 1887. In 1894, he was hoping to patent an improved nozzle for fire engines. Augustin and Laura were living in Long Beach, California in 1900. Hale died there in 1902.
Elisha Hale (1778-1851) was born in 1778. He and his wife Chloe had five children: Henry, Julius, Evelina, Augustin and Eliza. Elisha held patents for a collapsible umbrella, a rotary machine and a steam engine. In 1839 he traveled to Europe in an attempt to sell his patents. He returned home in 1841 after some success. He died in 1851.
Elisha Hale (1779?-1851) m. Chloe Ward Hale (1779-1863)
- 1. Henry Hale (d.1835) m. Deidamia Belinda Hale (d.1890)
- 2. Julius Hale (1810?-1845) m. Caroline Hale Harding
- a. Julius Henry Hale (b. 1840)
- b. Nelly Hale
- 3. Evelina Hale Jones (1813?-1864) m. William P. Jones
- a. Henry? (b. before 1849)
- b. Aline (b. before 1849)
- 4. Augustin Ward Hale (1814-c.1901) m. Jennett Van Kleeck (d. 1858)
- a. Agness Hale (b. 1842)
- 5. Eliza Hale Paine (1816-1855) m. Henry D. Paine
- a. Freddy Paine
- b. Evelina Paine (b.1846)
- Acquisition information:
- Purchased from Dorothy Sloan Rare Books Auction 2, Part 2, lot 133, October 25, 1994.
- Processing information:
-
1. All instances of Augustin's handwriting on any item for which he is not listed as author (autograph notes, signatures, etc.) are noted under his name in the "Added Entries."
2. The addressee "Hale Family" was used to indicate letters addressed to multiple Hale family members. The family members often wrote letters addressed to "Dear Friends," or "Dear Mother, Sisters, Brothers, etc.," or "Dear Sisters, Brothers, Nephew, etc."; these letters were meant for the entire family and would be passed around among the family members to be read. It was decided to use the addressee "Hale Family" to keep these letters together and for ease of cataloging.
3. After he received a letter from someone, Elisha Hale would copy his reply on the same sheet, so his letters often have multiple letters written on them (a letter could also include replies to several addressees). He also kept copies of his letters to various people on one sheet of paper. These are noted in the finding aid and on the folders.
4. The following subjects are not subject indexed in the finding aid due to their prevalence in the collection: Bishop William Kip, Sacramento, San Francisco, and gold mining (although some specific mines and mining camps are indexed).
5. Augustin's letter to his mother Chloe, dated 1855, Nov. 15, is written on a pictorial lettersheet: "Hutchings' California Scenes β Methods of Mining." The pictorial lettersheet "San Francisco Upper California in November 1851" can be found in the Oversize Items (with a handwritten note by Augustin W. Hale).
- Arrangement:
-
The collection is organized in the following order:
- Manuscripts (Boxes 1-5)
- Diaries (Box 6)
- Correspondence (Boxes 7-25)
- Ephemera (Boxes 26-28)
- Artifacts (Box 29)
- Oversize Items (housed in separate folders)
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Businessmen -- California -- Archives
Chinese -- California
Fires -- California -- San Francisco
Gold miners -- California -- Archives
Gold mines and mining -- California -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Gold mines and mining -- Nevada -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Indians of North America -- California
Inventors -- New York (State) -- Archives
Mines and mineral resources -- California -- History -- 19th century
Mines and mineral resources -- Nevada -- History -- 19th century
Mining camps -- California
Overland journeys to the Pacific.
Silver mines and mining -- Nevada -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Vigilance committees -- California
Voyages to the Pacific coast.
Women -- California -- Correspondence
Albumen prints -- California -- 19th century
Business cards -- 19th century
Business records -- United States -- 19th century
Deeds -- United States -- 19th century
Diaries -- California -- 19th century
Financial records -- United States -- 19th century
Legal instruments -- United States -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence) -- California -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence) -- Nevada -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence) -- New York -- 19th century
Maps -- California -- 19th century
Pictorial lettersheets -- California -- 19th century
Stock certificates -- California -- 19th century
Trade cards -- 19th century - Names:
- Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Wood, Fernando, 1812-1881 - Places:
- Big Bar (Calif.) -- Description and travel
California -- Gold discoveries -- Personal narratives
California -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Callao (Callao, Peru) -- Description and travel
Chinese Camp (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Coloma (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Comstock Lode (Nev.)
Grass Valley (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Hudspeth's Cutoff.
Lima (Peru) -- Description and travel
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Description and travel
New Jersey -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
New York (State) -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) -- Description and travel
Shasta (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Silver City (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Sacramento (Calif.) -- Description and travel
San Francisco (Calif.) -- Description and travel
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.
Yankee Jim's (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
- Terms of access:
-
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.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item]. Augustin W. Hale Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
- Location of this collection:
-
1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA 91108, US
- Contact:
- (626) 405-2191