Re: SF News Letter Golden Spike
Is it correct that there are actually two missing "second" gold spikes?
There is the second Hewes gold spike, shown on the Hewes receipt.
(Could: "One of the presentation spikes was afterwards cut, and half of
it given to Dillion as a memento" be describing the fate of the second
Hewes spike?)
and also the other
"second" gold spike from the San Francisco News Letter and California
Advertiser?
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 9:02 AM
4 Comments:
I believe the problem is that a photographic view of the Hewes spike was
printed showing several sides of the single spike. I believe there only
to be one Hewes spike (unless the later story of the original's
disappearance during 1906 and replication by Stanford Univ. has any
truth - but that is a different question).
Kyle
Note my NEW address of kwyatt@parks.ca.gov
Kyle K. Wyatt
Curator of History & Technology
California State Railroad Museum
The Hewes receipt of May 4, 1869 says "Finishing 2 Gold Spikes." So it seems hard to read this receipt any other way than that there actually were two Hewes gold spikes.
http://CPRR.org/Museum/Life_and_Times_CPRR/David_Hewes.html#Enlarge
Why would Schultz & Fischer bill Mr. David Hewes for the second spike if that second spike cited on the receipt was the same (second) spike referred to in the San Francisco News Letter of May 1, 1869 which was being instead donated to Leland Stanford for the ceremony by the SF News Letter, not by Hewes?:
The May 1, 1869 announcement of the SF News Letter spike reads:
THE LAST SPIKE
THE "NEWS LETTER" HAS THIS MORNING FORWARDED TO HON. LELAND STANFORD, AT THE FRONT OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD, A RAILROAD SPIKE OF SOLID GOLD—INSCRIBED : "WITH THIS SPIKE THE SAN FRANCISCO "NEWS LETTER" OFFERS ITS HOMAGE TO THE GREAT WORK WHICH HAS JOINED THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS, MAY 1, 1869."
http://CPRR.org/Museum/Newspapers/SF_Newsletter_1869.html
It may be uncertain if the photograph of spike with sprue (apparently by Bradley & Rulofson) shows two Hewes spikes or two views of the same spike, but the comment suggesting a possible interpretation of there being two "second" spikes was based on comparing the Hewes receipt versus the SF News Letter announcement, independent of this photograph:
http://CPRR.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow_files/Stanford_Tutorow_Ch6.pdf#search="56.The golden spikes"
The language "One of the presentation spikes was afterwards cut, and half of it given to Dillion as a memento" if referring to a gold spike, does not seem to refer to the SF News Letter -- wouldn't they likely have referred to their spike, rather than writing "one of the presentation spikes" if the SF News Letter's own spike had been cut in half? But it would not be an odd way of the SF News Letter stating that one of the two Hewes gold spikes had been cut in half. Cutting a spare Hewes spike (or perhaps one of the silver spikes) in half seems much more plausible than the SF News Letter allowing and leaving unstated that their only gold spike had been cut in half.
The article that Kyle mentioned is now online:
"The Golden Spike is Missing" by Robin Lampson, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. The Pacific Historian, 14 (1): 9-24, Winter, 1970.
Also see: The lost spike has been found!!!
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