Imperf Queen Victorias On 1857 New South Wales To California

This cover left Sydney, New South Wales on July 13, 1857 and arrived in San Francisco
on November 3, 1857 for a total of almost four months in transit. It is addressed to a
Mr. Aaron, Esq. in Gold Spring, near Sonora, Tuolumne County, California.





Sonora was founded by Mexican miners during the California Gold Rush (after the state
of Sonora, Mexico). Here is a picture showing Sonora in 1852 from William Perkin's
Journal of Life at Sonora

WOW Tom even I haven't got a cover from our early gold rush days and the history wow,our the Australian gold rush didn't start till 1851 so this was sent 6 years after the rush started most likely by an American prospector here to try his luck on the N.S.W. goldfieldslove the history materegards Harry

Thanks Harry! I think the cover may have been routed through London and then traveled around the tip of South America, which is why it took four months.

That's a long voyage Tom with modern airmail you don't realise what the letters went through to reach there destination. Just as a matter of interest Tom my great,great grandfather (on my mothers side)came from the Californian gold rush to the Victorian (Aust) gold rush about 1852-53

You have gold in your blood, Harry! My ancestors were much less adventurous, preferring to work on family farms and run a grain elevator in Ohio.