The Rush

by Edward Dolnick

  20 the total amount of gold dug up: ibid., p. 118.

  21 “What glorious old times they were!”: Mulford, Life, p. 98.

  Epilogue

  1 “a crooked, disgusting deformity”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 351.

  2 “steaming, boiling, seething, reeking”: ibid., p. 346.

  3 “A rushing, living tide of men and animals”: ibid., p. 386.

  4 “If I should get time”: ibid., p. 415.

  5 “performed prodigies in moving rocks”: Delano, Journey, p. 280.

  6 “I haven’t got to drinking”: Delano, Correspondence, p. 130.

  7 “The vein is struck”: Delano, “The Idle and Industrious Miner,” online at http://tinyurl.com/k7w34wm.

  8 “no fussing with servants or housecleaning”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 97.

  9 a local newspaper ran a story: ibid., p. 147.

  10 “The very air I breathe”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 141.

  11 “I have never regretted for a moment”: ibid., p. 143.

  12 “I should never wish to be in Maine again”: ibid., p. 148.

  13 California was “the place to enjoy life”: ibid., p. 158.

  14 “a dozen big clippers”: ibid.

  15 “We dine at seven”: ibid., p. 166.

  16 “54 years in the service of the government”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. xxvi.

  17 Bruff was reprimanded: “J. Goldsborough Bruff,” Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, online at http://tinyurl.com/mfu3vtm.

  18 “For the past sixty-three years”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 31.

  19 “I cannot abandon my notes”: ibid., p. 214.

  20 “Labeled my papers and drawings”: ibid., p. lxiv.

  21 “every thing of value I possessed”: ibid., p. 522.

  22 the best and most thorough: This is the verdict of Gary Kurutz, whose imposing and authoritative California Gold Rush discusses each firsthand account. See Kurutz, p. 87.

  23 “I was offered Ten Thousand dollars cash”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. lxv.

  24 “The rush to California”: Henry Thoreau, “Life Without Principle,” online at http://tinyurl.com/d9x965.

  25 “the agonizing, aimless movements of the sloth”: Taylor, California Life Illustrated, p. 278.

  26 “There is nothing around us older”: Bancroft, California Inter Pocula, p. 300.

  27 “In California the lights went on all at once”: McWilliams, California, The Great Exception. Carey McWilliams’s book, originally published in 1949, is brilliant and far-seeing, and I have drawn on it often.

  28 In 1860, its population: Nugent, Into the West, p. 58.

  29 San Francisco had more daily newspapers: McWilliams, California, The Great Exception, p. 58.

  30 California was rich: ibid., p. 59.

  31 a ship captain named Kemble: Alice Morse Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England (New York: Scribner’s, 1891), p. 247.

  32 bargaining power unavailable to their sisters: Lavender, Beginnings, p. 236, and Starr and Orsi, eds., Barbarous Soil, p. 163.

  33 white people in California saw sequoia trees: Kurutz, “Popular Culture on the Golden Shore,” in Starr and Orsi, eds., Barbarous Soil, p. 307.

  34 “Many men of fine mind”: Taylor, California Life Illustrated, p. 284.

  35 “Life was a dull and commonplace routine”: Hittell, The Resources of California, p. 15.

  36 “Every day was like Sunday”: Manly, Death Valley in ’49, ch. 15.

  37 “Recklessness is in the air”: Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 436.

  38 A man’s reputation as fiscally sound: Sandage, Born Losers, p. 31. Sandage was quoting from an essay on bankruptcy in Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review 4 (1841). See p. 31.

  39 “In any little random gathering”: Hittell, Resources, p. 333.

  40 “One man works hard all his life”: Lewis, The Big Four, p. 53.

  41 “The secret of them Pents”: Evans, They Made America, p. 111.

  42 “the great laboratory state of California”: Bill Keller, “A Jury of Whose Peers?,” New York Times, Sept. 13, 2013.

  43 “The cowards never started”: Joaquin Miller, a writer once famous as “the poet of the Sierras,” seems to have been the first to praise the emigrants along these lines. In 1881 he wrote, “The cowards did not start to the Pacific Coast in the old days; all the weak died on the way.” See Miller, “Old Californians,” The Californian 3, no. 13 (Jan., 1881), p. 48. Over the years Miller published slight variations on his comment in various poems and articles (and Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, composed a pithier version, in 1945, that came to be well known).

  44 “You’ve got to be willing to fail”: Steve Jobs. See http://tinyurl.com/7bejt68.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  HUNDREDS OF DIARIES AND journals, once hidden in the rare book rooms of the nation’s best libraries, have lately been digitized. New collections come online almost daily. It is now possible to type a few keystrokes and call up, for example, the very first newspaper stories reporting the discovery of gold in California. Wherever possible, I have cited works in their easiest-to-find form. The Library of Congress has done especially fine work in making its collection available. “LC” denotes a work available in the online archive at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html

  FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNTS:

  Barker, Malcolm E., ed. San Francisco Memoirs 1835–1851: Eyewitness Accounts of the Birth of a City (San Francisco: Londonborn, 1994).

  Barry, Louise, ed. “Overland to the California Gold Fields in 1852. The Journal of John Hawkins Clark,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 11, no. 3 (Aug., 1942).

  Bates, Mrs. D. B. Incidents on Land and Water, or Four Years on the Pacific Coast (Boston: French, 1857). LC.

  Bidwell, John. “Life in California Before the Gold Discovery,” Century Magazine, Dec., 1890.

  Borthwick, John David. Three Years in California (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1857).

  Buffum, Edward. Six Months in the Gold Mines: From a Journal of Three Years’ Residence in Upper and Lower California 1847–8–9 (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1850). LC.

  Carson, James. Bright Gem of the Western Seas: California, 1846–1852 (Lafayette, CA: Great West Books, 1991). LC.

  Christman, Florence Morrow, ed. One Man’s Gold: The Letters and Journals of a Forty-niner, Enos Christman (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1930). LC.

  Clappe, Louise A. K. S. The Shirley Letters: Being Letters Written in 1851–1852 from the California Mines by “Dame Shirley” (Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith, 1983).

  Cole, Gilbert. In the Early Days Along the Overland Travel in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 (Kansas City, MO: Hudson, 1905).

  Colton, Walter. Three Years in California (New York: S. A. Rollo, 1859). LC.

  Delano, Alonzo. California Correspondence (Sacramento: Sacramento Book Collectors Club, 1952). LC.

  ______. “The Idle and Industrious Miner.” (Sacramento: James Anthony, 1854). Online at http://tinyurl.com/k7w34wm.

  ______. On the Trail to the California Gold Rush (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). LC.

  Downie, William. Hunting for Gold (San Francisco: California Publishing, 1893).

  Drinker, Elizabeth. Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker, from 1759 to 1807 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1889).

  Drury, Clifford Merrill, ed. On to Oregon: The Diaries of Mary Walker and Myra Eels (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963).

  Dundass, Samuel. The Journal of Samuel Rutherford Dundass: Crossing the Plains to California in 1849 (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon, 1983).

  Farnham, Elijah. “From Ohio to California in 1849: The Gold Rush Diary of Elijah Bryan Farnham,” Indiana Magazine 14, nos. 3–4 (Sept.–Dec., 1950).

  Foreman, Grant, ed. Marcy and the Gold-Seekers: The Journal of Captain R. B. Marcy with an Account of the Gold Rush over the Southern Route (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939).

  Frink, Margaret. Jo
urnal of the Adventures of a Party of California Gold-seekers (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon, 1988).

  Gernes, Phyllis, ed. Daily Journal 1852–60 of Stephen Wing (Garden Valley, CA: Phyllis Gernes, 1982).

  Gordon, Mary McDougall. Overland to California with the Pioneer Line: The Gold Rush Diary of Bernard J. Reid (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983).

  Grant, Ulysses. Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (New York: Cosimo, 2007).

  Hanna, Archibald, ed. “I Hear the Hogs in My Kitchen”: A Woman’s View of the Gold Rush (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962). This is Mary Ballou’s account of her days running a boardinghouse in the diggings.

  Haskins, Charles. The Argonauts of California (New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1890).

  Helper, Hinton. The Land of Gold: Reality versus Fiction (Baltimore: Henry Taylor, 1855). LC.

  Henry, Fern, ed. My Checkered Life: Luzena Stanley Wilson in Early California (Nevada City, CA: Carl Mautz, 2003).

  Horner, James. “Adventures of a Pioneer,” Improvement Era 7, no. 2, 1904.

  Ingalls, Eleazer Stillman. Journal of a Trip to California by the Overland Route Across the Plains in 1850–1 (FQ Books, 2010). Online at http://tinyurl/lqv2dgb.

  Johnston, William G. Experiences of a Forty-niner (Pittsburgh, 1892).

  Kaufman, Polly Welts, ed. Apron Full of Gold: The Letters of Mary Jane Megquier from San Francisco 1849–1856 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994).

  Kemble, Edward. “San Francisco: Her Prospects,” Alta California, Feb. 1, 1849.

  Kip, Leonard. California Sketches, with Recollections of the Gold Mines (Los Angeles: Kovach, 1946). LC.

  Kipling, Rudyard. From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (New York: Doubleday, 1915).

  Langworthy, Franklin. Scenery of the Plains, Mountains, and Mines, or A Diary Kept upon the Overland Route to California. (Ogdensburgh, NY: Sprague, 1855). Online at http://tinyurl.com/krpba43.

  Letts, John. California Illustrated (New York: R. T. Young, 1853). LC.

  Lienhard, Heinrich. A Pioneer at Sutter’s Fort: 1846–1850 (Los Angeles: The Calafia Society, 1941). LC.

  Liles, Necia Dixon, ed. A Doctor’s Gold Rush Journey to California. By Israel Shipman Pelton Lord (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).

  Manly, William. Death Valley in ’49: The Autobiography of a Pioneer (San Jose, CA: Pacific Tree and Vine, 1894). LC.

  Marston, Anna Lee, ed. Records of a California Family: Journals and Letters of Lewis C. Gunn and Elizabeth Le Breton Gunn (San Francisco: Johnck and Seeger, 1928). LC.

  Marryat, Frank. Mountains and Molehills (New York: Harper, 1855). LC.

  Marryat, Frederick. A Diary in America: With Remarks on Its Institutions (New York: W. H. Colyer, 1839), 2 volumes.

  Mattes, Merrill, and Esley J. Kirk, eds. “From Ohio to California in 1849: The Gold Rush Journal of Elijah Bryan Farnham,” Indiana Magazine of History 46, no. 3 (Sept., 1950).

  McCollum, William. California as I Saw It (Los Gatos, CA: Talisman, 1960). LC.

  McNeil, Samuel. McNeil’s travels in 1849, to, through and from the gold regions, in California (Columbus, OH: Scott & Bascom, 1850). LC.

  Mulford, Prentice. Prentice Mulford’s Story: Life by Land and Sea (New York: Needham, 1889). LC.

  Palmer, Joel. Journey of Travels over the Rocky Mountains (Cincinnati: James, 1847).

  Perkins, Elisha. Gold Rush Diary (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967).

  Perkins, William. Three Years in California: William Perkins’ Journal of Life at Sonora, 1849–1852, with introduction and annotations by Dale Morgan and James Scobie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964).

  Pierce, Hiram. A Forty-niner Speaks (Oakland, CA: Keystone-Inglett, 1930). LC.

  Potter, David M., ed. The Overland Journal of Vincent Geiger and Wakeman Bryarly (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1945).

  Read, Georgia Willis, and Ruth Gaines, eds. Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949).

  Ring, Bob, Al Ring, and Steven Ring. Detour to the California Gold Rush: Eugene Ring’s Travels in South America, California, and Mexico 1848–1850 (Tucson, AZ: U.S. Press, 2008).

  Royce, Sarah. Frontier Lady: Recollections of the Gold Rush and Early California (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932).

  Sawyer, Lorenzo. Way Sketches, Containing Incidents of Travel Across the Plains from St. Joseph to California in 1850 (New York: Eberstadt, 1926).

  Scarnehorn, Howard, ed. The Buckeye Rovers in the Gold Rush (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1965). This book includes the diary of John Banks.

  Schafer, Joseph, ed. California Letters of Lucius Fairchild (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1931). LC.

  Shaw, Reuben. Across the Plains in ’49 (New York: Citadel, 1967).

  Stansbury, Howard. Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, Including a Reconnaissance of a New Route Through the Rocky Mountains (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1852).

  Steele, Eliza. A Summer Journey in the West (New York: J. S. Taylor, 1841).

  Taylor, Bayard. Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire (New York: Putnam, 1850), 2 volumes. LC.

  Taylor, William. California Life Illustrated (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1858).

  Thissell, George. Crossing the Plains in ’49 (Oakland, CA, 1903).

  Thompson, William. Reminiscences of a Pioneer (San Francisco, 1912).

  Thornton, Jesse Quinn. California and Oregon in 1848 (New York: Harper, 1864).

  Webster, Kimball. The Gold-Seekers of ’49 (Manchester, NH: Standard, 1917). LC.

  White, Katherine A., ed. A Yankee Trader in the Gold Rush: The Letters of Franklin A. Buck (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930). LC.

  Woods, Daniel. Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings (New York: Harper, 1851). LC.

  Wyman, Walker D., ed. California Emigrant Letters (New York: Bookman, 1952).

  HISTORIES

  Alpers, Charles, et al. “Mercury Contamination from Historical Gold Mining in California,” November, 2005, United States Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2005-3014 Version 1.1. Online at http://tinyurl.com/mbqun8c.

  Bancroft, Hubert. California Inter Pocula (1888). Online at http://tinyurl.com/l6ycxp3.

  ______. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, v. 23 (History of California), (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1882).

  Bernstein, Peter. The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (New York: John Wiley, 2000).

  Bieber, Ralph. “California Gold Mania,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 35, no. 1 (June, 1948).

  Billington, Ray. Words That Won the West, 1830–1850 (Foundation for Public Relations Research and Education, 1964). This is the transcript of a lecture delivered on Nov. 18, 1963, by Billington, a frontier historian then at the Huntington Library.

  Boessenecker, John. Gold Dust and Gunsmoke: Tales of Gold Rush Outlaws, Gunfighters, Lawmen, and Vigilantes (New York: John Wiley, 1999).

  Bonfield, Lynn, and Mary Chase Morison. Roxana’s Children: The Biography of a Nineteenth Century Vermont Family (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995).

  Brechin, Gray. Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

  Brown, Daniel James. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (New York: William Morrow, 2009).

  Browning, Peter, ed. To the Golden Shore: America Goes to California—1849 (Lafayette, CA: Great West Books, 1995).

  Bruce, John. Gaudy Century: The Story of San Francisco’s Hundred Years of Robust Journalism (New York: Random House, 1948).

  Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

  Byrne, Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008).

  Caughey, John. The California Gold Rush (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19
48).

  Cawelti, John. Apostles of the Self-Made Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).

  Chartier, JoAnn, and Chriss Enss. With Great Hope: Women of the California Gold Rush (Guilford, CT: Two Dot, 2000).

  Chen, Jack. The Chinese of America (New York: Harper & Row, 1980).

  Clark, Christopher. Social Change in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 2006).

  Clay, Karen, and Randall Jones. “Migrating to Riches: Evidence from the California Gold Rush,” The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 4 (December, 2008).

  Cleaveland, E. L. “Hasting to Be Rich: A Sermon, Occasioned by the Present Excitement Respecting the Gold of California, Preached in the Cities of New Haven and Bridgeport, Jan. and Feb. 1849” (New Haven, CT: J. H. Benham, 1849).

  Clough, Shepherd B. A Century of American Life Insurance (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970).

  Conlin, Joseph R. Bacon, Beans, and Galantines: Food and Foodways on the Western Mining Frontier (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1986).

  Cooke, Alistair. Alistair Cooke’s America (New York: Knopf, 1974).

  Cooperman, Jeannette. “Take Care, and Don’t Take the Cholera,” St. Louis Magazine, July, 2010.

  Corbett, Christopher. The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010).

  Courtwright, David T. Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

  Coy, Owen. The Great Trek (Los Angeles: Powell, 1931).

  Curran, Harold. Fearful Crossing: The Central Overland Trail Through Nevada (Las Vegas: Nevada Publications, 1982).

  Danforth, Reverend Joshua N. Gleanings and Groupings from a Pastor’s Portfolio (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1852). Online at http://tinyurl,com/nyfljsd.

  Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work (New York: Random House, 2006).

  DeVoto, Bernard. Across the Wide Missouri (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947).

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Conduct of Life (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860).

  Evans, Harold. They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine (New York: Little, Brown, 2004).