George Carpenter, Collection of Chicago Letters, Ca 1857-1858

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American History Auction

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Nov 18, 2016 - Nov 19, 2016

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• Lot Description
  After failing in the comb business, George Carpenter left Seekonk, MA and ventured 9,000 miles West to Chicago, hoping to recover some of his lost luck. Chicago became an incorporated city in 1830. It received its first railroad and telegram in 1848, which prompted exponential growth. Its fast development affected the land and forced the city to raise its sinking streets in two stages. Carpenter entered the city during its second stage in 1857. He was, in a way, an architectural enthusiast and often commented in his letters about the buildings in the city and the happenings on the streets. In one letter to his sister, Jane, he described the road construction and city infrastructure:
  
  The streets are being graded and in awful condition, at present, the whole city is being raised out of the mud, the sidewalks before the old buildings are 4 ft. below the new, it tis up and down stairs as you go along One st. I walked out on today Is very beautiful, the lake on one side, and the palaces of the merchant princes in the other more than a mile long. But down in the Dutch quarter tis horrid, mud, such as Eastern folks never see small dirty shantys see right in it swarming with beer drinkers the memory haunts my nose this minute… plank sidewalks are almost universal all over the city and are dry and clean enough in any decent part I can rapidly believe though that in the quarter I spoke of in muddy times, a careless tread will squash torrents of mud into the face from between the planks (Chicago, Sunday morning, not dated, 1857(?)).
  
  By 1854, Chicago was the world’s largest grain port. Despite economic pressures during the Panic of 1857, Carpenter noted that Chicago businesses seemed unaffected. The streets are alive with teams &c the grain [illegible] are leaving for Buffalo in fleet. The dry goods shop seem to be crowded with fair purchasers supposing they are making great bargains (Chicago November 8, 1857).
  
  Carpenter settled in the bustling metropolis and made fast friends with German and Dutch immigrants, but employment did not come as easily as friendship. Soon, his only clothes mirrored his empty pockets. I feel very ashamed to go to church as my clothes are very shabby, wrote Carpenter.  My pants with a pair have huge rips and my attempts at repair make them look more shocking. I must give the tailor a job very soon or go to seed rapidly. (Chicago, September 13). Good fortune found Carpenter with a new business partner, Mr. Perry. They opened a store together selling dry goods and helium lamps. Less than a few months after opening, a fire engulfed eleven establishments on their street. Carpenter salvaged what he could while the firemen attempted to extinguish the inferno (Chicago, January 10, 1858). The store survived, as did Perry, but another fire back East destroyed his small inheritance. Misfortunes now come single, wrote Carpenter, it seems but I think more of yours and the use then that of my own loss by the fire. Those noble woods must look desolate enough all charred and blackened. The land is about valueless without the woods (Chicago, June 23, 1858). Undeterred, he chose to view his failures as opportunities for personal growth. It is very plain to me that if my life had been always successful, if my projects had made me wealthy I should have become a worldly wise, selfish man—certainly never a Christian—It was all for our good that I left home for the far west though it is hard to think so—and the future so dark (Chicago, June 23, 1858).
  
  Compounding misfortunes did dampen Carpenter’s spirits a little. He was melancholy at times about his singlehood. He wished for a wife, but could not afford one. News of the marriages of some of his old flames only increased his desire to marry. He told his sister that many of the Chicago belles were, pretty enough to make a mans heart jump into his hands but he remained unlucky in love and in business (September 3, 1857). The store failed. Desperate for work, he toiled as a farm hand in Princeton, IL while he waited for his friends to find him a clerkship in Chicago. He was still determined not to go back East, but ultimately had to return.
  
  He enlisted in the army on March 2, 1861 as a private. He mustered into the 1^st Rhode Island Infantry. He was wounded at the battle of Bull Run and returned home to recover. Once healed, he was commissioned as 2nd lieutenant in the 3rd RI Heavy Artillery, Co. D and served as quartermaster at Fort Seward. His collection of letters while serving in the 3^rd RI are offered as Lot 105.
  
  Carpenter’s Chicago letters would be a worthwhile addition to any collection on urban development and Chicago history. 

  Condition

  Typical folds of the letters, many are missing their original envelopes. 
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