Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches

Not Published, 1880. First edition. Hardcover. Very good. Original cloth, gilt title. Cloth sunned to tan on spine, slight fading at top of front cover; waterspot. Born in Connecticut, Stephen Johnson Field was practicing law in New York when word of the Gold Rush arrived. He sailed to California in 1849, crossing Panama at Chagres. He soon became a leader of the California bar, going on to sit on both the State Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. His book focuses on his first years in California, centering on his experience as practicing attorney and the first alcalde for the mining town of Marysville, 1850-57. In the second section, he relates anecdotes of his later career as justice, first of the California Supreme Court, then of the U.S. Supreme Court. Very scarce first edition, in original binding (later reissued with additional material). A very good copy. Cowan, p. 208; Howes F-117.