(from Jim Nevins,
“Letter from J. M. Nevins to Russell Nevins
in Wisconsin, Sacramento City, Dec. 2, 1849”)
GOLD WAS DISCOVERED the morning of January 24, 1848, by James W. Marshall, the foreman at Sutter’s mill near Sacramento. As word crept out, the lust for gold set off a stampede of prospectors. San Francisco and Monterey were soon drained of merchants, blacksmiths, stevedores, clerks, and servants as they up and quit their jobs, grabbed a pan and shovel, and hightailed it to the mountains.
“A frenzy seized my soul,” confessed a novice prospector. “Piles of gold rose up before me at every step. Thousands of slaves bowed to my beck and call. Myriads of fair virgins contended for my love. In short, I had a violent attack of gold fever.” Oh, the thrills of prospecting! The delirium of the search, the euphoria of the find. “I crawled about the ground seizing bits of stone, blowing the dust from them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then peering at them with anxious hope. Presently I found a bright fragment and my heart bounded! I hid behind a boulder—I polished it and scrutinized it with nervous eagerness and delight. The more I examined the fragment the more I was convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and carried away my specimen. Of all the experiences of my life, this secret search was the nearest to unmarred ecstasy.”
Within four months the gold fever infected the East and the exodus began. Some New England towns even banded together to form mining fraternities. The rich grubstaked the adventurous. They scrupulously signed contracts and swore to share their profits when they struck it rich. But when the men hit California running, it was every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.
Most forty-niners came by way of the Oregon Trail; others traveled via the Isthmus of Panama, where many died; and still others sailed around Cape Horn. By 1850, thirty-seven thousand miners worked the Feather, Yuba, Bear, and American Rivers. The average man’s take was four to six dollars a day. By the time the gold rush was over, the gold bug had bitten 450,000 men.
Only a few unearthed a bonanza. In six days on the American River, Joe Smith found nuggets worth $8,000. Peter Bolas, panning the Sassafras River, garnered $18,000, in two weeks—$450,000 at today’s gold prices.
Drawn by hope and then exhausted by disappointments, most prospectors eventually quit. Others were not as lucky. “The old crowd,” wrote George McKinstry, Jr., to a colleague in 1851, “is scattered by death and disaster since you left. William Daylor by cholera; Jared Sheldon, shot in a row with miners; Perry McCoan by a fall from his horse; Sebastian Keyser drowned; Little Bill Johnson, who knows?; Captain Luce, missing in the mountains; old Thomas Hardy, rum; John Sinclain, cholera; William E. Shannon, cholera; old William Knight, rum as expected; Charley Heath, rum and missing; Bob Ridley, fever, I think. Old Kitnor, made a fortune and went bust; William A. Liedesdroff, dead; old Eliab Grimes, dead; Jack Fuller, ditto.”
In this 1849 letter, included in Nobility in the Rough by David Boring, prospector Jim Nevins wrote home from Sacramento to tell his family of his challenging experiences.
SACRAMENTO CITY, December 2, 1849—My dear parents, wife, brother, Marilla, God bless her…
I now write you all for the first time from California. The golden land. To let you know I am alive and well. Hoping this will find you all in good health and good spirits, for I have not heard a word from you since the St. Joe letter.
I feel a little cross to think that you did not think of me enough to have a letter here for me when I got here, but hope you will now make up for lost time. Since I wrote you from Fort Laramie, fortune has used me rather roughly.
On the fourth of July we lost the off ox of the Hawks team. July 31 we lost the ox we bought in Missouri, Aug 22 we lost an ox and had to have our wagon and tools sold, as well as our provisions and what we could. Wooding very sick. We now joined another team from Illinois that had some cattle. We had three. All I saved was a two-bushel bag of some bedding. Before I go farther, I will tell you where we were when all this happened.
We had left the Humboldt river sixty miles from its sink, to take, as was told us, a much shorter route. This road against my advice. I cussed and swore enough to have carried a sawmill, but to no purpose. Chancey Wooding was as contrary as a D—h—. He never would agree with me in anything.
The road we took had 80 miles of desert and but one watering place, and not a spear of grass. The one I wanted had 50 miles of desert, but water in three places. Wooding grows worse until Sept 2 when Chancey Wooding ended his earthly career. He was buried on the Southern Oregon road about 120 miles from the Humboldt River.
Father I leave it to you to tell the relatives of his sad fate. I ought to have written to them but have not. His disorders were his old complaint. His liver and a new disease we had on the road called the Mountain fever. He was very obstinate. He would not take the doctors medicine (much less mine) for I believe as I am a living man, I could have saved him.
His property I have in my possession, and when I come home I will pay it to Helen Wooding, Milton’s girls as he directed me, four days before his death.
We crossed the Sierra Nevadas Sept. 7 in the lowest spot in the whole ridge. 8 yoke cattle would pull up a wagon with 15 hundred in it. The mountain was about as steep as a roof of a house, for one mile. Road very good. I was taken sick this morning, and my disorder was mountain fever. I was taken with a headache and back ache, and almost froze to death. After the coldness left me, then the fever. Gosh ninety! Didn’t I catch it.
I felt a little scared too, because so many have died with this disorder. I took a big dose of the great Westerns, they operated gloriously and then I downed with quinine by the cart load, and got better.
We descended the west side of the mountain very fast. But I did not gain my health till about the first of Oct. We arrived at the Sacramento River at the mouth of deer creek Sept. 30 having lost every ox but old Brin and three weeks of time covering this northern route.
We were one hundred and fifty miles in Oregon, when we passed the ridge of the mountains. After resting three days we descended to the Feather River. We forded it. It is as large a stream as Rock River. I sold old Brin for 50 dollars.
Oct. 12 went to work, took a job. Made $171/2 per day, for two days. I worked in the mines 161/2 days and made in that time $215.00 and spent in that time $40.24. I had $135 left when I got to the mines. My pile is a good deal smaller now than when I started out, $280.00 all told.
I do not expect to earn more than my board this winter, although some that got into the mines before I did have four, five, six, and even ten thousand dollars.
It is very hard work in the mines. Use pans, cradles, quick silver, machine to work gold. The mines are as good as you hear them to be, but I would never advise the meanest dog in Christiandom to come to California.
Flour is worth in the mines 1.25 per pound, pork 1.50, sugar .50, coffee .50 per pound, brandy 50 cents drink, beef .30 and potatoes .40 per pound.
Oxen are worth 50 to 100 dollars per yoke. Mules 150. Horses 50 to 300 dollars each.
Medicine is plenty here. Quinine is 10 cents per ounce. Chalogogue 5 dollars per bottle. Doctors are plenty. One visit is 10 dollars.
Sacramento City contains at present about 20,000 inhabitants. The houses are made of all kinds of material. Cloth, sheets, iron, wood, and sundried red bricks called doubas.
The Sacramento River is about a quarter of a mile wide. There are about fifty ships here in the river, used as store houses, and boarding houses. There are five steam boats on the river. Some go as high as Vernon, a small little town at the mouth of the Feather River.
The town is as big as Ft. Atkinson and only four months old. The American River city lots are selling from 1,000 to 30,000 dollars each.
My Father, that little book is still on the window sill before me. That goes when I go and death will part us. Father I had to throw away the note book, but saved one tune. Sing it Father and think of your unhappy son, thousands of miles away from home. I am not the only one who wishes himself home. Often do my thoughts wander back to the fireside of my family.
Oh my Mother, how I wish I had taken up with your advice and stayed at home. But I have nobody to blame but myself. Melvin when you eat your meals, think of your brother who has lived five days on beef and no salt at that. Would I be glad of the bread in the swill pail? I guess I would. I was hemmed in with high water on the Bear River.
My wife, kiss little Rilla for me and tell her that her father far away thinks of his child and home. If we were once more in that little brick house, happy I should be. What I called hard at home, was comfort compared to what I now get.
Give my respect to Ben and Louisa and the little one. To Uncle Tyler and Jason and Aunt Rosaline and all inquiring friends, if I have any.
My parents, I remain your respected son. My wife, your affectionate husband. My brother good by and God bless my child.
My dearest wife. It is going on seven long months since I have heard from you. Long seems separation. When shall we meet again? God only knows. Long years and months must pass before that time arrives, but keep up the good cheer, for let us once get home and nothing but death will separate us. My prospects are not very flattering at present, but I hope for better times. Luck must turn. I lost my all a getting here, but look for me next fall, if I live.
Jim Nevins