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Men's Dress Shirt labeled W.C. Ralston, Easton Trunk [156865]

Currency:USD Category:Artifacts / Shipwreck Artifacts Start Price:2,500.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 USD and UP
Men's Dress Shirt labeled W.C. Ralston, Easton Trunk [156865]
SOLD
4,000.00USD+ (800.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2022 Dec 03 @ 17:17UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
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Men's dress shirt recovered from the Easton trunk found with the S.S. Central America shipwreck. This shirt was rolled up in a copy of New York News in the Easton trunk (the actual newspaper will be a lot in the February SSCA sale).

Shirt has vertical pleats above the stomach area, with "W.C. Ralston" written in ink directly below the lower pleat boundary, dead center. Holes for cuff links, with button closure at the top of the cuff area with two partial buttons present. The bottom of the shirt is particularly broad, skirt-like, for long-term tucking into pants. Rear split collar, typical of the day. Overall length about 36 inches, sleeve length from seam of underarm to cuff edge about 27 inches, and the collar is about 15 inches. [break] William C. Ralston was a great friend of Ansel Easton and his wife Adeline. Adeline was the youngest sister of San Francisco banker D.O. Mills of Sacramento. Mill's older brother was one of the first commission merchants/bankers in San Francisco, established about late 1849. By 1852, the three brothers, James, Edgar, and Darius, created the firm of D.O. Mills & Co., and D.O. Mills himself became a powerful force in Gold Rush banking. Ralston also became a major player in the Gold Rush banking scene. As a partner with Garrison, Fretz, and Ralston, the trio quickly rose to financial fame. Fretz & Ralston continued the bank after Garrison's retirement, and later, after the closure/merging of Fretz & Ralston, Ralston was a founder of the Bank of California with Mills in 1863, a bank so powerful that it is one of only two to survive to the present day along with Wells Fargo.

William Chapman Ralston was the founder of the Bank of California. With agent William Sharon, the two took control of the Comstock Lode mines in the 1860s. They created a branch of the Bank of California in Virginia City in 1864 with Sharon as agent. By offering low interest loans to mines and mills with the properties as collateral, they were able to create a monopoly. Since this was a period of declining mining activity, most couldn't repay their loans and the Bank took over the mines and mills. By 1867, they owned seven mills, which they organized as the Union Mill and Mining Co. By 1869, they had seventeen mills. Their dominion over the Comstock was ended by the Bonanza Firm (Mackay, Fair, Flood, O'Brien) and their rival bank, the Nevada Bank of San Francisco. Ralston, along with D.O.. Mills, also founded the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Ralston also built the luxurious Palace Hotel in San Francisco, site of the Sharon Comstock Lode reunion dinner that had silver ingot invitations that our company has sold in the past. The cost of construction, paired with some other investments, and the financial Panic of 1873, caused the collapse of the Bank of California and Ralston's ruin. In 1875, he went swimming in San Francisco Bay and was found dead, possibly from a stroke.

Date: 1857
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Provenance: SS Central America Collection