I recently finished a book of letters from the gold fields. Henry S. Crandall was writing back to Tarrytown, New York, to his sweetie Mary Bell. Their grandson stumbled across a chest of these letters and edited them for a book. Henry went on to be in the cabinet of Chester A. Arthur, and the grandson Roland Crandall was a cartoonist in the early part of the century. The book was published in 1967.

The New York Tribune published a letter "from a young Army lieutenant":

Camp on American Fork
Near Sutter's Oct 28, 1848

My Dear Friend:
The weather is pleasant, no rain, and people are arriving & departing daily and hourly. I have no doubt 400 people have already arrived from Oregon. They usually camp for a day or so near us, look about, swear at the high prices and disappear in the grand vortex. Some come out of the hills, and are making tracks for the settlements fearful of rain & winter, but others less thoughtful dive into the mountains, without provisions or any preparations for the rainy season. ... It is impossible to get at anything like truth, but that the amount of Gold in these mountains exceeds any previous calculation I have no doubt. Men have and are still making fortunes, and that Brannan & Co. [1] have cleared $100,000 the past summer is certain. His daily sales do not fall much short of $3,000, of which $2000 are clear profit over & above all expenses. ... Were I at liberty to continue in this vicinity this winter and next spring, I would not take $10,000 for the chance -- but I must go, and that soon, and have accordingly fixed upon the 26 instant to start.

Your old friend,
W. T. Sherman

So Henry, who had already failed at a butter-and-egg job and was working in the store in Galesville for his soon-to-be brother-in-law, said goodbye to Mary and outfitted up for the trip. He joined a company each of whom paid in $50 for wagons and oxen and tools. He got himself a rifle, revolver, and Bowie knife from his brother-in-law.

They left March 10, 1849 on the Camden & Amboy RR from New York City to Philadelphia. (A six-hour trip.) Then on the 12th they paid $13 each for fair to Pittsburgh by railroad and steamer to Baltimore, then the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This got them to Cumberland, where on the 14th they took stages to Brownsville, where they took a steamboat to Pittsburgh, arriving the night of the 15th.

Pittsburgh is a dirty place. The coal smoke and dust from its hundred furnaces and forges cover everything indoors and out. Go out in the morning with a clean shirt and in 10 minutes it's as black as the ace of spades.

St. Louis on March 27 and from there up the Missouri. They got to St. Joseph on April 14. It took approximately 10 days to outfit for the cross-country journey. Finally, they left April 22, singing "I'm going to San Francisco, and then I'll look around And pick up all tose Lunps of Gold A' layin' on the ground!"

Henry doesn't write very much about the trip, or his grandson wasn't interested in this. So they first got to the diggins August 21. "Col. McDoual grew fearful that the boys would overdrive, and not take on grass sufficient for the cattle, as the last 60 miles has no grass, so he decided to return to the company with his aides. That night a bear carried off our frying pan, which was but a few feet from our heads, licked it clean, -- messed up the teapot, cups and canteens, and carried off a bag of hard bread belonging to the Massachusetts men who were travelling with us."

September 3:

Arrived in Sac. City, the end of the long California Trail. Visited Sutter's Fort, a haven for destitute immigrants. [2] Dispatched letters. . . . Sacramento City is a bee-hive of activity. It is the hub of the gold region and the busiest river port in the West.

By September 15 a sick Henry was in the mines. He got one-third of $20, and discovered it was hard work. Henry never stayed too long in any one place. He had malaria or something else brought on by the journey, and so the panning season of '49 didn't work well for him. That winter he and a friend set up a firewood business in San Francisco.

I'm struck by how unreliable the letters were. The friends they were sent with would die, or never find their person, or the steamer from Panama would sink, or the letters would be lost. By 1853 the mail was much more reliable.

Henry stayed in the gold fields, but kept getting deeper in debt. The best money he made was in Nevada City when he worked for a water company. They'd built sluices and people paid for the water to pan their diggings. However, this wasn't the strike-it-rich he was looking for, and just as he was about to become debt-free, he headed for a claim again. Also, he bet on the election of 1852, on the Whigs, and lost.
He began to miss Mary and think she should come out to California and they could make a life here. Alternatively, he would come back and marry her and they would then return to California for at least a five-year stint. She was horrified at the very thought. She saw friends off to be married in San Francisco, but she never even considered it herself. I was very disappointed in her. Her sister got married and moved away, and Mary pined alone for a couple of years. Henry's sister feuded with her for awhile, as well. (This sister is best described as a pickle. A letter:"I sometimes trouble when I think of the temptations with which you are surrounded, -- every kind of wickedness, but I entreat you, my dear Brother, never go to the Gambling table, and above all things, never, O, never put the Wine Cup to your lips. If you should ever be tempted, think of your Mother and Sisters who idolize you. I would rather hear that you had died crossing the plains than hear such news about the Brother I have nursed since infancy, and the Brother I have so often thrashed on my knees, and the Brother I love so much.")

In June of 1851 Henry was with a group in Nevada City who hired a Chinese cook for $100 a month. Their cost of living at the time was about $1.75 a day. He was happy and planned to invest some capital and stay, quartz mining. He was involved in a lawsuit between two water companies. The other one claimed $10,000 damages, but it was settled for $100. "However, our counsel gees will amount to between $3,000 and $4,000, while the opposite side paid their lawyer $5,000." (As you see, mining the miners was the real money-maker!)

July 4 of 1851 Henry took off for "the City", Sacramento.

After fifteen months absense, I hardly know Sac City -- the change from a city of canvas in 1849 to one of brick and pavement sidewalks, etc., I was partly prepared for, but in regard to other improvements adding greatly to the beauty and cleanliness of the city, and also in the amount of business done I was astonished. I know of no other eastern city to compare it with, except Troy, and in many respects the latter would suffer by the comparison. There is only one thing lacking, and that is shade -- they cut too many trees in laying out the city. [3]

He goes on to talk about Benicia as the capital of the Eureka state. That didn't last long. "I only saw some four houses and a temporary State Capitol. They could not have selected a worse place-- blank, barren and out of the way -- that is for the river Steamers.
"Benicia is destined to become a place of some importance, perhaps in time to surpass San Francisco."

They had floods in 1852 (this after Henry had commented on California's wonderful weather.) "Talking of Water puts me in mind of the expense we have been to again, in consequence of our largest reservoir breaking and flooding the city. [Oops] The expenses are as follows: Repairing reservoir $1600, damages downtown (Nevada City) $500, County tax $300, city etc. $600, salaries for the month $800, total $3800."

Since Mary stubbornly refused to even consider coming west, Henry finally returned to New York in 1853 and they were married. He was later in Chester A. Arthur's cabinet. Anyway, this was an interesting book, and it underscored a lot I learned in the gold rush lecture series. The Sacramento Bee has a section about the gold rush, for further reading.