GUEST: My great-great-grandfather went from Central Missouri to the California Gold Rush. The first letter is written from Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Some of the others are from Sacramento City, which became Sacramento. Rough and Ready, California. Some of the other letters are from his mother and father, and his girlfriend that later became my great-great-grandmother wrote back to him.
APPRAISER: He was going out to make his fortune, I take it.
GUEST: Well, that's what everybody went to the Gold Rush for, I'm sure. There must have been a large group of them from Central Missouri that went on a wagon train, because he's writing back home and giving reports on mutual acquaintances--their health and their fortunes and that sort of thing.
APPRAISER: These letters are mostly from 1850, '51, in that period. The Gold Rush started in 1849, so he wasn't the first very, very early wave. Constantly when I was reading through these, he was talking about, "Well, maybe I'll stay another year, maybe I'll stay another year." Do you ever know if he hit gold?
GUEST: I assume not. By the dates on the letters and the other information I have, he must not have stayed more than two or three years. Now, part of that, it takes quite a while to go and quite a while to come back. He returned to Central Missouri and got into the farming and ranching and state politics, and was quite a successful, well-known, and well-respected man.
APPRAISER: So you have about a dozen letters. Have you ever had these appraised or had anyone look at them or...?
GUEST: No, they've just been passed down from generation to generation. We're going to keep them in the family.
APPRAISER: Yeah, and you said something, though, that at one point, the family transcribed them.
GUEST: Yeah, I have them printed up in a loose-leaf book.
APPRAISER: Yeah, I always advise that because it's a good idea because that way, if people really want to see them, studying future generations, they don't actually have to have the letters. They're great letters. He was very well written. So when you read these letters...a lot of times, when you read a letter about the Gold Rush, a diary, a war, "It's cold," "It's hot," but you don't really get a feel for it. And these letters really made it feel like you were in California with him, you were with his friends.
GUEST: Yeah, he kind of paints the picture, doesn't he?
APPRAISER: He does paint the picture. As they are now, in the plastic, I would say that conservatively, a retail price would be $3,000 to $5,000. Then with a little bit of checking, it would be nice if they could be removed from the plastic, but that could be a job in and of itself. But $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST: Okay, thank you for the information.
APPRAISER: So he did get something valuable out of the Gold Rush--the letters.
GUEST: Yeah.
