Journal of forty-niner turned local winemaker sells for $8,820 at auction

If time travel were possible, Anisya and Lynn Fritz would love to meet Lewis Meyer, the forty-niner turned vintner who inhabited the couple’s Lynmar Estate in Sebastopol some 150 years ago and gave their winery a tie to the Gold Rush.

As it turns out, reading Meyer’s journal appears to be the next best thing to time travel.

“To know this land was cherished by families for more than 150 years is special,” Anisya Fritz said. “What surprised us was that grapes were grown and wine was made on the property prior to Prohibition.”

In addition to being captivating reading for the Fritzes, the journal has cachet as a historical document. This spring, it sold for $8,820 through Christie’s auction house.

It also is encapsulated in the 2023 book “To the Land of Promise: The Extraordinary California Gold Rush Journal of Lewis Meyer” by historian Sal Manna (available on Amazon).

Manna will be signing copies of his book for Lynmar Estate wine club members Aug. 3, and the findings of the journal will be incorporated into tours of the winery property.

Connecting the dots

Manna stumbled across the 226-page journal about a year and a half ago when Mike and Patti McCombs, neighbors of Dorothy Hinkle Nelson, a descendant of Meyer, showed it to him.

Nelson, who died in 2004, willed the journal to the McCombs. They eventually put it up for auction in February and the buyer was anonymous.

The connection between the journal and Lynmar Estate was made last fall, when Manna was giving a talk at the Sonoma Valley Historical Society. In the audience was Katherine Rinehart, a historian hired by the Fritzes to research the history of their Sebastopol property.

At the event, Rinehart approached Manna and asked, “Is your Lewis Meyer my Lewis Meyer?”

Finding the journal and linking it to Lynmar Estate is how history unfolds, Manna said.

“One of the great joys of historians is being able to connect the dots and this is the ultimate story of connecting the dots.”

“The Quail Hill Vineyard at Lynmar Estate has been in our family for almost 45 years,” Anisya Fritz said. “We’ve always wondered about its history.”

Now, they had an answer.

The life and times of Lewis Meyer

Lewis Meyer, a German immigrant with his sights set on prospecting for gold, set out on a sailing ship from New York City in February 1849, traveling around Cape Horn with a stop in Chile before landing in San Francisco six months later.

Meyer spent several months mining for gold in the Stockton area. But when he didn’t strike it rich, he settled on becoming a grocer in San Francisco for more than a decade and then found his way north to Analy Township (now Sebastopol) and to the property that is now Lynmar Estate.

Meyer owned 250 to 300 acres of land where he farmed grapes and made wine — up to 2,500 gallons in 1870.

His journal, Manna said, is a rarity because it gives insight into the era of the Gold Rush, as well as detailing some of its key players.

“California would not be what it is today if not for the Gold Rush — demographically, economically and even historically,” he explained. “For example, the gold helped fund the union’s effort in the Civil War.”

“(Meyer’s journal) is one of the last, if not the absolute last, major first person’s journal about the Gold Rush.”

You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @pegmelnik.