[New Mexico]. [Mining]. Ayers, John

[Manuscript Letterbook Recording John Ayers' Mining Activities in New Mexico, and Later Used by Him As a Scrapbook During His Time As Superintendent of the American National Cemetery in Mexico City]

[Santa Fe, N.M. 1884-1906]. 15pp. of manuscript text, plus over sixty pages of newspaper clippings pasted in. Quarto. Contemporary red leather backstrip and marbled paper-covered boards, printed label of the U.S. Military's Quartermaster "Headquarters District of New Mexico" on front cover, with added manuscript notation, "John Ayers Santa Fe N.M. Watchman Private Book." Spine perished, moderate rubbing to boards. Most leaves detached. Good. Item #3099

An odd manuscript letterbook containing brief, but early and albeit useful, information on mining in New Mexico in the 1880s, and then later re-employed as a scrapbook in order to record information on various aspects of western American life, and activities surrounding the American National Cemetery in Mexico City. The original owner and compiler of the letterbook was Captain John Ayers, who notes himself as "Watchman" at the Santa Fe District Headquarters's Office of District and Disbursing Quartermaster. In the first portion of the book, Ayers records the minutes for several meetings of miners, including himself, at "Camp Ayers, near Pedernal Mountain, Valencia Co., New Mexico." These meeting notes record the founding of the Camp Ayers mining district, formed by Ayers and a half dozen other named men in early 1884. The notes also memorialize the boundaries of the mining district, and mostly report the locations of various defined lodes and claims. The meeting notes are signed by Ayers as recorder and David Catanach as president or locator of the group, which also included some Mexican-American men, namely Emiterio Rivera, Hypolito Delora, Antonio Vigil, and Telesfor Rivera. Delora and Vigil also sometimes attest the meeting notes or report them as locators.

The mining-related manuscript portion of the letterbook actually numbers more than fourteen pages, but several pages of content are pasted over with various later newspaper clippings, manuscript poetry, and the like. Given enough interest, the attached clippings could be soaked away from the manuscript pages to reveal the full text here. Apparently the letterbook was re-utilized as a scrapbook by American officials in Mexico City, which is explained through a manuscript inscription on the front free endpaper: "This book was found in the Superintendent's lodge at the U.S. Nat. cemetery in Mexico City Mx. by Cap. John H. Thomas '13 Missouri -- 22 O.V.V.L.' Presented to Taylor Breitlinger in Oct. 1911 -- a value relic from an old friend." Some of the content in the newspaper clippings refers to the American National Cemetery in Mexico City where the book was later found.

As it turns out, Captain John Ayers himself is the key to unlocking the reasoning behind the use of the book as a letterbook containing manuscript records of mining activities in New Mexico and then being pasted over with newspaper clippings. According to one of the newspaper clippings, Ayers later served as the superintendent of the American National Cemetery in Mexico City. He must have taken the book with him when he left New Mexico, used the book to record his activities at the American Cemetery in Mexico, store his favorite newspaper clippings, and then left the book behind in the superintendent's lodge when he left Mexico City.

Price: $850.00