An Enterprising Woman in California

INTRODUCTION

As in our first volume we are including at the very end a letter published in an eastern journal quoting from a woman who had gone west with the covered wagons. This anonymous quote tells of the rich opportunities women had because they were so rare in the mining regions. Her first sentence reads, “I have made about $18,000 worth of pies—about one-third of this has been clear profit.” Well, as they say, “That ain’t bad.” As a matter of fact, she did much better than most men who went seeking the golden treasure.

Our other items in this volume have involved a process of making known to the reading public women who had been heretofore anonymous. This last item—unsigned—must remain anonymous.1

We have before us, says the Boston Traveler, a private letter from a lady, though a hard-working woman, in California. It would interest our readers, we have no doubt, as it has us, were we at liberty to publish it entire. The writer appears to keep a restaurant or eating-house, in a mining village. Among her visitors she accidentally discovers the son of an old Connecticut acquaintance, and finding he was endeavoring to induce his father and mother to visit California, she writes this letter to encourage them forward. After an introductory explanation of who she was, and where they became acquainted with each other, she goes on to say:-

I have made about $18,000 worth of pies—about one-third of this has been clear profit. One year I dragged my own wood of the mountains and chopped it, and I have never had so much as a child to take a step for me in this country. $11,000 I baked in one little iron skillet, a considerable portion by a camp fire, without the shelter of a tree from the broiling sun. But now I have a good cooking stove, in which I bake four pies at a time, a comfortable cabin, carpeted, and a good many “Robinson Crusoe” comforts about me, which, though they have cost nothing, yet they make my place look habitable. I also hire my wood hauled and chopped. I bake on an average about 1,200 pies per month, and clear $200. This, in California, is not thought much, and yet, in reality, few in comparison are doing as well. I have been informed there are some women in our town clearing $50 per week at washing, and I cannot doubt it. There is no labor so well paid as women’s labor in California. It is hard to work to apply one’s self incessantly to toil, but a few years will place you above want with a handsome independency. I intend to leave off work the coming spring, and give my business into the hands of my sister-in-law. Not that I am rich, but I need little, and have none to toil for but myself. I expect to go home some time during the present year, for a short visit, but I could not be long content away from the sunny clime of this yellow land. A lovelier or more healthy climate could not be, and when I get a few friends about me, I think I shall be nearly happy again.