Map of the Old Saucelito Land and Dry Dock Co.’s Lands Showing the Property for Sale at Auction By Maurice Dore & Co. Auctioneers Tuesday July 22nd 1873

George Henry Goddard (1817-1906) was an accomplished artist and civil engineer who played a pivotal role in California’s early history. Originally from England, he ventured to California during the height of the Gold Rush, initially seeking fortune in the goldfields. His transition to professional surveying soon entailed working for the California government and winning lucrative contracts from railway and mining companies. This work, in turn, led to significant contributions in cartography, including notable publications such as Britton & Rey’s Map Of The State Of California (1857).

In recognition of his groundbreaking work in surveying the Sierra Nevada, one of the range’s highest peaks (13,564 feet) was named ‘Mount Goddard’ after him in 1864. His later move to San Francisco saw the creation of several iconic representations of the city and its surroundings, etching his name into San Francisco’s historical legacy.

Throughout his adult life, Goddard diligently collected historical objects and documents pertaining to California. Stanford was planning on building a museum for his collection when it was destroyed in the fires following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. While Goddard himself survived the conflagration, the calamity took such a toll that he died a few months later.

George Holbrook Baker (1827-1906) was a Massachusetts-born artist who learned his trade from the New York engraver George C. Smith. Following his apprenticeship, Baker attended the National Academy of Design before emigrating to California during the height of the Gold Rush. He arrived in San Francisco in late May 1849, and within three months, his first views of the town were being published in New York.

Baker briefly tried his luck prospecting for gold, but like so many other emigrants, he found that it was easier to make a living using the talents and skills with which he arrived. Even today, it is a commonly held notion that the people who became rich from the Gold Rush were the shovel and pan-sellers rather than the prospectors themselves. 

In 1852, Baker moved from San Francisco to the new state capital at Sacramento, where he started several businesses and two periodicals while also creating new and sought-after views of northern California. In 1857, Baker drew and published a large birds-eye-view of the young ‘City of the Plain’ (printed as a lithograph by Britton & Rey in San Francisco), which achieved enormous popular success. In 1862, after a devastating flood had ruined him, Baker moved back to San Francisco and started a lithography and publishing firm that specialized in advertising and posters, including architectural and urban vistas, dedicated stock certificates, and regional maps. Despite more than a decade of success, his company was gradually outcompeted during the 1880s, and by around 1890, Baker closed his doors and retired.

Despite his ending in commercial failure, George Baker is acknowledged as one of the most significant artists and lithographers of the Gold Rush era. His work constitutes some of the most important visual documentation of California during the formative decades of its incorporation into the United States.

Inkstamp "Remington Collection" in lower margin, with number 9357 stamped in lower blank portion of map.