The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 | Page 8

ELLIOTT REED, San José; ALEXANDER S. TAYLOR,
Monterey; R. K. SWEETLAND, Volcano; LANGTON & BRO., Sierra
County; DR. STEINBERGER, agent Adams & Co., Oregon; HENRY
M. WHITNEY, Honolulu, S.I.
MONSON & VALENTINE, Printers, 124 Sacramento Street
But few copies of the Pioneer are known to be in existence. Odd
numbers are sometimes found, but these are generally in a mutilated
condition, while the bound volumes lack the advertisements.
The first number was issued in January, 1854, and the last in December,
1855. The first letter of the Shirley series appeared in the initial number,
and the last one in the final issue. The magazine seems to have been
well received in the East, and the Eastern magazines reviewed it very
favorably.
Of Shirley herself it is not necessary to say much in this Foreword. She
was a typical Massachusetts girl, although born in New Jersey, the
residence of the family in the latter state being merely temporary, as is
clearly shown by her correspondence. A letter from Miss Katherine
Powell, librarian of the Amherst Town Library, sheds some light on the
early associations of Shirley. In part, she says,--

In spite of widespread inquiries, I have been able to get ... [but little]
concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people now
living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of Amherst
Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and 1840....
Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers who have
lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has added
many names to that list. Two of them--Emily Dickinson the poet, and
Emily Fowler Ford--were schoolmates of Miss Smith. Mrs. Ford was
the granddaughter of Noah Webster (an Amherst man [one of the
founders of Amherst College]) and daughter of Professor Fowler [the
phrenologist], who wrote several books. Eugene Field was, some years
later, a student of the old Academy, and in his poem, My Playmates, he
mentioned by their real names a number of his old schoolmates. Helen
Hunt Jackson was a contemporary of Miss Smith here, and, although
she did not attend the Academy, must have been well known to her.
Amherst, it should be said, was the home-town of Shirley's family, and
to it she often fondly refers in the Letters. It is not cause for wonder
that she is not now remembered in Amherst. Her correspondence shows
that the members of the family, although devotedly attached to one
another, were inclined to disperse.
Mrs. Mary Viola Tingley Lawrence has kindly permitted the printing in
this volume of a paper prepared by her to be read before a literary
society, containing much that is interesting of Shirley's life. Mrs.
Lawrence is well known among the literati of San Francisco. She was a
contributor to the old Overland. What is of more interest here is the fact
that she was a favorite pupil of Shirley, and later her most intimate
friend in California. It was from a selection of poetry gathered by Mrs.
Lawrence that Bret Harte obtained the larger portion of his selection
entitled "Outcroppings" (San Francisco, 1866), a title, by the way,
claimed by Mrs. Lawrence as her own.
Rich Bar and Indian Bar, in Butte County at the time the Shirley Letters
were written, are now in Plumas County, consequent upon a change of
the county boundary lines. There are two Rich Bars on the Feather
River, the minor one being on the Middle Fork, and oftentimes

mistaken for the one made famous by Shirley. James Graham Fair, one
of the earliest multimillionaires of California, and United States
Senator from Nevada, panned out his first sackful of gold at Rich Bar,
and probably at the time Shirley was writing her Letters. Many other
men, whose names are familiar to Californians, also delved into the
earth at this historic spot, which is now, in railroad "literature," called
"Rich." Like many another California clipped place-name, the new
name has not the glamour of the old, which, in the words of Shirley,
was "a most taking name."
In closing this Foreword, the printer desires to emphasize the fact that
the typesetting and presswork of this book are entirely his own work.
No one acquainted with the methods employed in a legitimate
book-printing house will fail to recognize the fact that it is well nigh
impossible to print a book without possession of the minute technical
knowledge essential in each department. Hence the most skillful
book-printer is distrustful of himself, unless supported by experienced
craftsmen, and more especially by time-tried proof-readers. For many
favors extended while the Letters were in press, thanks are due, and are
now acknowledged, to Milton J. Ferguson, the librarian of the State
Library at Sacramento, California, who was never-failing in either
service or patience.