This file contains two letters written by William Heath Davis. One of the letters is type-written and the other is hand-written. The first typed letter is dated April 10th, 1893 and is addressed to a Mrs. Anita Cooper Wohler and the other is dated June 27th, 1894 and is addressed to the President of the Society of California Pioneers, C.V.S. Gibbs. In both letters Mr. Davis is asking for a loan to help him with the publishing cost pertaining to his book, titled "60 years in California". Mr Davis arrived in California in August of 1831.

William Heath Davis (1822-1909) was the son of a Boston ship captain engaged in the Hawaiian trade and a Polynesian mother. He visited California twice on trading voyages before setting up business there in 1838. In 1845 he settled permanently in San Francisco, becoming one of the city's leading merchants. His marriage to Maria de Jesus Estudillo tied him to the Hispanic community in his adopted region. Mr. Davis would go on to write "Seventy-five years in California" in 1929, which was an expansion of "Sixty years in California", a book Davis published in 1889, and the subject of these two letters. It is a history of California as well as the author's memoirs of his life through the mid 1850s with an emphasis on the transformation of Yerba Buena to San Francisco, the Gold Rush, and the imposition of United States power in California.

1 folder 1 Folder ( two letters; one hand written and one typed)