Heading: (California Letter Sheets)
Author:
Title: The Miner's Ten Commandments
Place Published: Placerville, CA
Publisher:James M. Hutchings
Date Published: 1853
Description:

Eleven wood-engraved vignettes surrounding three columns of text, with blank page attached. 28.5x23.3 cm. (11¼x9¼"), single sheet of blue paper.

First sheet only, missing the blank conjugate. On the verso is the final page of an autograph letter from a gold seeker, writing to his wife. He mostly expresses his regret at separation, but is thankful for his health. The Miner's Ten Commandments was the first of many letter sheets Hutchings published, and its basic format of including multiple vignettes on one page was used on several letter sheets. Hutchings wrote the commandments in the late spring of 1853. At the time, it was common in Placerville, as in other mining towns, for miners to conduct business and work on Sundays.

Classic letter sheet. The vignettes are: Top, center: Elephant points with trunk at sign for Ten Commandent [sic] on cabin; miner looks on. At sides and bottom, other vignettes: No. I.: miner holding shovel aloft, staking claim; another miner nearby; No. II.: miner "jumping a claim," other miners in background; No. III.: a gambling "hell," woman and children standing plaintively in doorway; No. IV.: miners at Sunday tasks; No. V.: peaceful domestic scene in miner's former home; No. VI.: men drinking in a rude tavern; No. VII.: men discouraged at lack of results from panning; No. VIII: men by a stream; hanged man, across stream; No. IX.: two miners, foreground; man being shot, background; No. X.: courtship and/or marriage

Marginal chip at top right corner, a little soiling, a few repairs on verso; very good.