Three original notebooks, from ca. 9,5x18,5 cm (3 ¾ x 7 ¼ in) to ca. 9x16 cm (3 ½ x 6 ¼ in). Ca. 83, 45, 6 leaves (in all ca. 220 pp. of text). Pencil and ink on lined or graph paper, numerous calculations and graphs in text. Two notebooks with Healey’s name and address written in pencil on the first leaves, one notebook with an ink stamp “Charles T. Healey” on the first leaf. Two period brown full sheep and one period brown full cloth binding. All notebooks with pencil or ink dates on the front covers; one notebook with an ink note about its contents on the front cover. Notebooks soiled and rubbed on extremities, one notebook with a large tear, separating the spine, but overall a very good collection.

Manuscript field notes: ca. 1885. Folio manuscript, ca. 35,5x21,5 cm (14 x 8 ½ in). 6 leaves (9 pp. of text). Brown ink on lined paper. With an attached printed certificate, signed and sealed by the U.S. Surveyor General for California, W.H. Brown on June 29, 1885. Fold marks, paper slightly age-toned, otherwise a very good manuscript.

Historically significant collection of three rare early original manuscript notebooks and field notes by an outstanding pioneer land surveyor of California, Charles Terraine Healey, who gained prominence by his surveying and mining work in Santa Clara County in the 1850s-1860s, and in the Los Angeles area in the 1870s-1900s. In 1882, Healey became the first resident of Willmore City (modern-day Long Beach) and created its first map the same year. The notebooks contain Healey’s notes on the mining work in the New Almaden and Guadalupe quicksilver mines (mentioning his discovery of cinnabar), land surveys of the borders of several ranches (Rancho Los Capitancillos, Los Vergeles Ranch, Moro Cojo Ranch), work on the San Lorenzo Creek (Alameda Co.) and near the Sargent station of the Southern Pacific Railroad (now a ghost town).

The Folio manuscript field notes, titled “T7S R4E MDM [Township 7 South, Range 4 East, Mount Diablo Meridian],” documents a survey (most likely by Healey, but not indicating his name) to retrace the boundaries of Los Huecos Rancho in the Diablo Mountain Range (Santa Clara County, east of San Jose), conducted in September 1881 (p. 9 of the manuscript). The document mentions the surveyor crossing the Isabel Valley, “trail to San Antonio,” “high divide between Coyote and Santa Isabel [creeks],” “one of main heads of Isabel [creek],” “dense growth of caparral,” &c., and fixing and setting up markers and flags (with their precise geographical coordinates). The manuscript is supplemented with an official printed certificate from the U.S. Surveyor-General’s Office, dated June 29, 1885. The certificate confirms the authenticity of the manuscript and bears the signature and seal of the U.S. Surveyor-General, W.H. Brown.

Overall an important collection of early rare original materials on the land survey in Northern and Central California.

A list of notebooks:
1. [December 28, 1871 – September 10, 1873, 1886. New Almaden Mine, Rancho Los Capitancillos, San Lorenzo Creek, &c.]. Ca. 83 leaves (ca. 129 pp. of manuscript text). Period brown full sleep binding. Ink stamp with Healey’s name on the first leaf; Healey’s name and address written in pencil on the second leaf. Ink manuscript date and a list of places on the front cover.

Notes include:
Dec. 28th. Commence measurements for connecting Randol Shaft with Day Tunnel. Strain a little. John Quillan and a Mexican miner assistants.
Dec. 30th1871. Needle course of preliminary line from Randol shaft to Day Planilla.
Dec. 31st1871. Make stakes etc. in Caprenter shop morning and make a rod in afternoon. Very heavy rain.
Jan. 1st. 1872. The new discovery of cinabar made on Saturday by me has the following bearings <…>. After closer examination now that it is day or nearly so, I think it is not cinabar but jasper or porphery [sic!] in serpentine or rotten soapstone. (Upon third examination we decide that it is cinnabar).
Set stakes on big base near the hills from Randol shop to Day Planilla. A most beautiful day. Blue skies, flurry clouds, genial sunshine, green hills, charming view of the valley <…>
Sunday Jan. 7th1872. Sen lines at top of Randol Shaft for Ccoss cut.
The foregoing survey for the connection of the Randol Shaft with the Day Tunnel was made with the greatest care and was a perfect success. <…>
March 20, 1872. [Resuming?] of boundaries of Rancho Capitancillos. 
July 11th, 72. Names of property holders in San Juan outside of patent line of S.A. Rancho.
Sept. 26th1872. Survey for connection. Cora Blanca Tunnel (“Los Angeles”) with C. [Faull?] tunnel. (Important).
Sept. 10, 73. 8 a.m. Put a box 17 ½ inches wide in San Lorenzo creek at Ferguson’s. The water flows through it to a ditch 4 inches with a fall of about 3 inches in 10 ft.
March 4th, 1886. Take noon train from San Jose to Sargent’s.
March 5th, midday. J.P.S. and I go horseback up the channel of […?] creek, examining the [dam?].

2. [November 10, 1875 – March 1876. Guadalupe Mine (Santa Clara Co.), Los Vergeles Ranch (Monterey Co., San Benito Co.), Moro Cojo Ranch (Monterey Co.), and others]. Ca. 45 leaves (ca. 83 pp. of manuscript text). Period brown full sleep binding. Healey’s name and address written in pencil on the first leaf. Pencil manuscript date on the front cover.

Notes include:
Nov. 10, 1875. Survey what is or was called the “7th level.” From breast, old work <…> 
Afternoon. Sending for contour lines. Run 365 ft line (365 ft below summit of hill which is the datum line) across map territory, also run the 300 ft line from back of Powder House to back of […?] House.
Dec. 15, 75. 3 p.m. Los Vergeles Ranch from old sec. cor.
Dec. 17, 75. Captain [Ripley?] and I examined Gabilan creek. Set [rod?] at Oak tree V. on hill 80 to 100 ft above level of creek.
Dec. 18, 75. For Henry Mayors, Moro Cojo Rancho.

3. [June 6 – 27, 1879. Guadalupe Mine (Santa Clara Co.)]. 6 leaves (11 pp. of manuscript text). Period brown full cloth binding. Pencil note “1879” on the front cover.

Notes include:
June 6-79. Maj. V. & I go to Guadalupe Mine, arrive at 8:05 p.m.
27th June 79. Hensch, Cart. W., and I examined the lode in No. 1 and n No. 2. I then make some […?] on the ridge from […?] to K. No. 14 <…> hot as hell…
Charles Healey “was born in North Hartland, Vt., July 31, 1833, was educated at the Perkinsville Academy, and in young manhood took up the study of surveying. After a short time passed in New York he came to California in 1854, locating at San Jose, where he established himself as a surveyor, and made his home one of the characteristic and picturesque California adobe houses of that period, now the only one of its kind left standing in San Jose. While living in that town, he was city clerk from the year 1856 to 1858, and city engineer from 1862 to 1866, having been county surveyor of Santa Clara county from 1856 to 1858. For many years he was also mining engineer of two quicksilver mines, the New Almaden and the Guadalupe, near San Jose. He was the first licenced surveyor in California, and his work for the Banning, Rindge and Irvine families in this state included the building of the Conejo dam in Ventura county and the surveying for the building of the old stage road on Santa Catalina Island. Many times Mr. Healey was called upon to testify in litigation suits in court regarding boundary lines, and his testimony was never questioned, his word being law in all such cases. Several glass models of mines made by him are now on exhibition in the Ferry Building at San Francisco, having been exhibited at the World’s Fair in Chicago. At the outbreak of the Civil war he organized and was made captain of the home guards at San Jose. In his great surveying enterprises it is said that every Spanish grant of land south of San Jose, Cal., was surveyed by him.

It was early in the ‘70s that Mr. Healey came to Los Angeles, where he at once made for himself a prominent place among the surveyors of this city, being engaged in the surveying of several great ranches for the Bixbys, extensive land owners in this county, and was engaged to survey the property covering four thousand acres which the Long Beach Land Company purchased from Jotham Bixby, where on the present city of Long Beach has sprung up. Mr. Healey has therefore been acquainted with Long Beach from the first, having staked out the sheep pastures of the old ranch into lots for the new city, and having camped at what is now the corner of Ocean and Pine avenues when there was no house in the place but a shepherd’s hut, and served as city engineer for Long Beach and San Pedro several years. Mr. Healey was appointed by the Los Angeles Water Company as arbitrator to represent their interests in the taking of the independent companies. In Los Angeles he continued the practice of his profession at an office in the Baker Block, being active in the surveying along the courses of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers, as well as in the regions given up to the cultivation of fruits” (Charles Terraine Healey// A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs: Biographical. Vol. II. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915, pp. 110-111).

“In 1884, the Healeys built a home on East Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, between Locust Avenue and American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard)” (Krythe, M.R. The Man Who Plotted Long Beach// Independent (Long Beach, California), 10 February 1963, pp. 80, 95).