Name/Title
LetterEntry/Object ID
2015.026.0043Scope and Content
Hand written draft of a letter by M. Hall McAllister to the editor of a magazine - stamped with date of November 10, 1944
"Dear Sir,
Your article The Camel Brigade in Nov, 44 was most interesting particularly the item 433 - "34 gov. camels sold at Benicia California in 1864"
These animal arrived at the U.S. Arsenal Benicia which is about 30 miles north of San Francisco on the upper reaches of the Bay at the mouth of the great Sac & S.J. Rivers.
I was born in 1861 at this Arsenal at the home of my uncle Col. Julian McAllister. As a boy of ten years I remember how excited we children were to go to the corral and sit on the fence and see these great camels with their rough and shaggy coats and contentedly chewing their cuds. They were all sold to circuses and gone by 1870-1871."
Hand written in pencil on a 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" sheet.Collection
Benicia Historical Museum Collection
