Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
The Saga of Henry Plummer Book 1 by Sven Skaar (PH 3-1) (1959) (97 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 97
co “keep thé Postmaster Gen‘eral. advised from time to
time of the state and progress of settlement in the
cou ‘ry, and what routes
sho. .d be created by law
to furnish them with mails.”
Many Populous Towns
By the time Van _ Voorhies
stepped ashore in San Francisco
in February '49, populous mining
towns lay strung like beads along the golden streams of California. And others were springing up, all the way from the
Sierra peaks to down along the
rivers that cut through rolling
foothills and broad valleys on
their race to the sea.
Was he to ignore this progress
surging about him and hew to
his orders that demanded setting
up post offices only in San Francisco and the mission hamlets.
of San Diego, San Pedro, Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo and
Monterey? Those tiny adobe clusters lay removed a hundred to
five hundred miles from the roaring, pulsing American gold towns;
besides, there was hardly a man
jleft in them they had all gone
to the mines.
It would prove futile to communicate with Washington. A
letter would take two months to
reach the east and two more be‘fore an answer was in his hands,
not allowing for the time Con-.
gress would consume in making
his recommendation into law.
Successor Tried
Van Voorhies’ successor, R. T.
P. Allen; did the best he could.
{n spite of orders, he opened
three offices in the gold région,
at Sacramento, Stockton and Col-.
oma on November 8, 1849, trust-}
ing Washington would eventually!
approve his act.
The Indian name ‘“*CULLOMA”
first used, was changed to Col-,
oma on January 13, 1851. An:
envelope cancelled CULLOMA is
today a most desirable item to
the collector of letter-covers. I;
is us rare as a Grass Valley envelope cancelled CENTERVILLE,
which occurred only between
Later Centervilles sprang up in
Alameda and Tuolumne counties .
and must not be confused with!
the early Grass Valley cancella-_
tion.
The problems that faced Van
Voorhies in those first months,
July 10, 1851 and August 10,’ 1852. .
must have made him a frustrated and bewildered man. Mail
bags, bulging with letters addressed only to So-and-so, San Fran-)
cisco, continued to be dumped on
the docks by each arriving vessel.
Flow from North
He had found the “‘cotton regions’ non-existent, but the flow
of Northern farm and city woys
headed for the mines, very real
indeed. And they were a democratic bunch of bédys, intolerant:
of slavery.
To prove it, they banded to‘gether and wrote community laws,
mining laws and a Constitution
for California that éxcluded slavery forever from her Soil.
And they expected their Federal Government to see to it that
they got their mail. When the
service bogged down, HiSy bellyached loudly.
The Placer Times said on August 8, 1849: ‘
“The regular mail is a regular humbug, it’s stuck in the
, moud half the time and might
. as well be the other half. No
newspapers are sent up from
‘ the Bay, and we understand .
that. the postmaster of San
. Francisco cannot: .afford. to
. employ clerks. Who will éstab. lish an express?’ And* -who
will not give a dollar for every
letter promptly delivered?”
! he editorial bore fruit, for in
tits following issue the paper announced:
“. . two expressess have
been established between this
city and San Francisco. Our
old uncle will have to stir his
stumps, else his regular arrangements will become a
dead letter.’’
Town after town, tamp afte
camp got their one man exoresses, their newspapers, banks
and stores and saloons and gamb‘ing palaces too.