Category Archives: Uncategorized

If you like books, this is the place to be next Saturday. Peruse books, meet authors, and enjoy a bookish day in Sacramento. I’ll be there with my books, so I hope I’ll see you. The festival is sponsored by … Continue reading →

Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) was a British historian best known as the author of The Last Days of Hitler (1947). He wrote extensively on Nazi Germany and on England in the 16th and 17th centuries. His Ten Commandments for History Writers … Continue reading →

I was listening to a podcast from This American Life (April 20) about the Ten Commandments in today’s world. The host, Ira Glass, began the story with examples of other versions of the ten commandments that people have come up … Continue reading →

One last story from Amy Likins, the lady book agent— One day in 1872 she was going about her rounds in Stockton, filling orders that she had taken on a previous trip. (Every sale required two trips for a book … Continue reading →

Amy Likins must have gotten used to dealing with drunks and mashers. In San Jose she had this encounter– While working there, I met on the street one day a widower; he was a Missourian, a fair specimen of southern … Continue reading →

John Bidwell was not a Forty-Niner, because he was already on the ground in California when gold was discovered. How, when, and where did Bidwell discover gold? Join me at the Chico History Museum at 10 a.m.on Saturday, March 29th … Continue reading →

Amy Likins was in Sacramento (as related in part 5) when she was treated courteously by “the illustrious and distinguished Governor S.” at the railroad office, and given permission to canvass around the premises, where she encountered “a ruffian under … Continue reading →

Only a few months after the Likins family arrived in San Francisco they experienced a violent earthquake. The earthquake had a magnitude between 6.3 and 6.7, and took place on the Hayward Fault on October 21, 1868. It was called … Continue reading →

And here she is! Or should I say, “Here I Come,” since that’s what Mrs. J. W. Likins says herself on the picture. Six years of selling books had given Amy Likins plenty of confidence. This is the title page … Continue reading →

Mrs. Likins, the Bancroft book agent, took pride and comfort in her membership in the Rebekah order of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and she mentions this several times in her memoir. The Odd Fellows were founded in the … Continue reading →