Untitled

Letter - Autograph Letter Signed. 1 pg.+ stampless address leaf. To M.B. Cohen, Mobile, Alabama...from P. Selling in Macon, Mississippi...About a financial transaction, adding: "John Selling left New York 21 the May for California with the Steamer Crescent City for Chagres and Panama."...one of the earliest existant correspondence of a Jewish 49'er. ......06/11/1849 21 year-old German immigrant John Selling, a dry goods merchant sailed aboard the Crescent City. He reportedly did not arrive In San Francisco until October 11 aboard the Steamer California. He settled in Petaluma, possibly its first Jewish residents - though the Jewish community in the city traces its origins to 1864.. The writer, Philip Selling, possibly John's brother, also sailed for California; in 1852 he and his fiancé became the first Jewish couple married in the city of San Francisco. He first settled in Sonora, in the Gold Rush country, before moving Portland, where his son rose to political prominence as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.

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Physical Location

Arc.MS.56, Box 20, Folder 9