99 lines, on 2½ pp. of 4-page lettersheet folded to form its own cover, addressed on 4th page. 12x8.

Early Gold Rush letter written from San Francisco in the heady days of autumn 1848. John Gibb, writer of the letter, is apparently not the John Gibbs who, according to Bancroft, came to California in 1845, a member of the Grigsby-Ide party, but Bancroft does not mention a John Gibb as being in California in his Pioneer Register. Other sources indicate that a John Gibb, Jr., of Tennessee, wrote from California that he had met his cousin, Senator William McKendree Gwin. At any rare, irrespective of the positive identification of the writer, the letter is highly significant. Besides giving an early and vivid picture of Gold Rush California, the letter also is significant in the annals of California postal history. It was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, letters sent from California’s first U.S. Post Office in Monterey. The stampless cover reads Monterey, Calfae, April 3d 1849. The letter had remained written but unsent for over half a year, before a post office was established in Monterey, and the mails began to move. John Williams, in his 1997 book California Town Postmarks 1849-1935, records the earliest mail sent from Monterey as being dated April 17th, 1849, which this letter would seem to pre-date by two weeks. Gibb has recently returned to San Francisco, and is amazed at the changes: “…I have reached home again and in good health at this time and have been since I saw you. Times have so changed since I left hear that I am some what disappointed now, I think perhaps for the better, I got through with $1370 dollars which I shall double in 30 days perhaps though it is a little late in the season, I got through on the 9th of September and could not hear of any person of my acquaintance or nothing at all but the goldmines goldmines was all the cry so I went to the gold mines to see what they were made of and found them made of rock sand gravel dirt and gold and there was less gold than any other part, though I was lucky enough to make an average of one hundred dollars per day for five days at which time I left the mines to come to the settlements… In the dry diggings a man can make an average of $20 dollars a day but every thing is so high a man can’t live on less than three dollars per day, for a pare of pants worth $1.50 there is worth $8.00 dollars hear… blankets $16.00 dollars apiece… boots from $12.00 to $25.00 dollars spades and shovels $10.00 dollars large tin pans for washing gold holding 2 gallons $10.00 dollars and scarce beef in the mines $2.00 dollars per pound…” He discusses further prices and wages, the sale of gold dust at the customs house, and life in San Francisco: “I would not advise a man to bring a family hear now as there is no society at all, the most kind places when I left here is now the worst, there is none or but little robbing going on yet but people go armed to the teeth hear and honest men go in small companies form two to eight in number…” He then asks about all of his acquaintances back home, and concludes with a P.S.: “Write to me at San Francisco jail not care of Howard and Wallace except the Line be started and then there will be a post office hear believe what you see in this it is large to your small to what you would hear hear if you did not see it.”