Quarto bifolium ca. 24.8x19.7 cm (9 ½ х 7 ½ in). Brown ink on bluish laid paper. Fold marks, slightly age-toned, but overall a very good letter written in a legible hand.

Dated 19&20 January 1860, this content-rich private letter offers a vivid insight into San Francisco’s early history, when hundreds of thousands of prospectors flocked to the city, causing a severe surplus in the labor market.

The letter was written by William S. Harrison, a decorator with Jones, Wooll & Sutherland in San Francisco. Harrison apparently left New York for California in the 1850s and remained in San Francisco until the late-1860s.

In this anxious letter, the author writes to his wife, “Beck,” in New York and expresses his deep regret at setting out on “a wild goose chase” to California. Harrison details his plans for the future, calculates the cost of returning to New York, compares San Francisco to an “asylum,” and confesses his love for his wife: “I did not know how much I loved you until I found myself away.” In the rest of the letter, William talks about his friends and relatives in New York and San Francisco, shares the latest news about two suicide cases in the city, mentions an early American stagecoach service “Overland Mail,” and enthusiastically comments on the “New York Ledger.” At the end of the text, the author reiterates his deep remorse over leaving his family for “these foolish notions…” of making a fortune and sadly notes: “I was a fool to go away and leave you.”
Overall, a historically interesting letter by a disappointed job-hunter in California, offering a vivid insight into the severe labor market crisis in 1860s San Francisco.

The text of the letter (original spelling and punctuation preserved):
“I received the first letter you wrote to me, a few weeks ago, and I was also very glad to have a copy of the Ledger as it made feel as if I was home again when I read it. I wrote to you one week ago by the Overland Mail, and I will continue to write to you once a week while I remain here. So you may look out for a letter every week. The Overland Mail takes letters just as certain and as speedy as the steamers do, and as I have plenty of time to write, and you have plenty of time to read, I have concluded to write to you, and give you some employment in reading my letters. I was sorry to hear Eddy & Willie had been sick but it appears they had got better when you poster the letter. When I went away I did not expect to see old Jack alive again and the event proves that I was not disappointed. I feel sorry for the poor critter but I don’t believe you grieve much as he was considerable trouble. I was pleased to hear however that you did not expect to see little Ella before you returned, you must take care not to get that way before I get back, and then say it was because I wrote you so many letters. I would like very much to see you all again but I don’t believe we will ever meet in California, it makes me very unhappy to think that I was ever fool enough to leave you and my home, and come out here on a sort of wild goose chase. It is an awful bad feeling to be here doing nothing, and have no money to get home again. I have had that feeling almost ever since I have been here, but I feel a little better now than I did one week ago. Since I wrote last I have finished one little job of compo work on a steamboat and earned 10 dollars. It took me about 2 days to do the work, but all the ornamental work on the boat is going to be gilt, and I think I will have it to do. The job will come to about one hundred and ten or fifteen dollars but the gold will cost about one half of that money, so the other half will be for my time and work. I can do the work in one week by my own hands, so I will do pretty well on it if it takes no more gold than I think it will. I have not yet got the job for certain, but I think I will find out tomorrow about it. It is my impression that I will have it to do in a few days, but there is no certainty about anything until you have it in your own hands. I don’t count my chickens any more until after they are hatched and running about. I gave one little job of gilding to do tomorrow but it is very small, not worth mentioning. I am very anxious to get enough money in my hands to pay my passage back when I find it best to go, for I don’t like to be kept here, and not have the power to get out of the country, it is very unpleasant to know that you can’t get away, when you find it necessary to leave. The fare is now 47 dollars, and if I get the steamboat job I will have money enough to leave at any time, and will not feel so uneasy as I do at present. I want to send you some money too before yours is all gone, but so far I have not made enough yet to think of sending any way. After I get enough to go home with, I will either send you money or else you will hear of my arrival in New York, because if I can’t earn enough here to live on, I will have to do the best I can in New York at Grate Setting or some other clean and genteel business. I do not like to separated from you and the children, and do not intend to be separated long if it is in my power to prevent it, so if I don’t do very well here and make money pretty fast you may expect to see home again soon - I have no idea of sending for you to come here at all without I should have exceeding good fortune here, which is not at all likely. You would not be satisfied when you got here, for I know I am not. My ornaments have not arrived yet, but I am looking out for them every day, although it may be a long time yet before they get here. After they get here I will either sell them and go home, or else begin to use them or else throw them away - Untill within a day or two past I have been to work for a about 2 days, and then walking about the streets for 2 weeks. That sort of business does not suit me at all, but now I hope things have take a turn for the better, although as I said before there is no certainty that I will earn 10 dollars for a month to come. It appears to be impossible to get any journey work to do in my business at the present time, so I am running about hunting up odd jobs among steamboats, and other places. I don’t want any journey work and would not take it if I can get steamboat jobs and other work and be my own master, as I have always been used to. So I hope I will get that job of gilding that cabin, and make enough to pay my passage home, if things here continue as dull as formerly and I can get no employment to make it worth my while to stop - So, Beck that is the way I am situated now. I wrote a letter to my father a few days after I arrived here, and sent it by the Overland Mail. He ought to receive it in a few days from the present time. I think I will write him another in a few days. I have not heard any thing from New York since I left and do not expect to until my father answers my first letter. If you should happen to hear from my folks you must let me know what it is.

There are a good many cases of insanity here now, many of them are caused by want of employment and the impossibility of making a living. I think I was partially insane when I left home to come here, but I fancy I am cured now as well as if I had been in an asylum. Two or three people have killed themselves within a few days from the same cause, one hanged himself the other took strychnine, because he could get nothing to do.

I believe I have nothing more to say at present except that I am very anxious to be reunited to you once more in the bonds of love and friendship, and want to see little Willie & Neddy very much indeed, in fact I did not know how much I loved you all until I find myself away off here and all means cut off to see you again very soon.

Then I discovered more than ever that you were all very dear to me, and that I was a fool to go away and leave you, but it was done for the best, and I thank it will prove to be the best in the end. So I must content myself by thinking how much I will love you, and how happy I will be when I have the good fortune to see you again and be with my family once more and I hope I will have the sense to stay with them and give up these foolish notions of going off to make a fortune -

Send me copies of the Ledger when you write as the expense is trifling compared with the satisfaction I feel in reading them.”