Guide to the Bancroft's California Gold Rush Digital Collections

John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee name: Cheesquatalawny, or Yellow Bird), March 19, 1827-October 5, 1867, was a member of the Cherokee Nation and is considered the first Native American novelist. In 1854, Ridge published The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, which is considered the first novel written in California and the first novel published by a Native American. He also worked as a newspaper editor and writer for the Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Herald, among other publications. Ridge writes about money he owes [Waity?] and assures him that it will be paid promptly. He describes the difficulties in gold mining, particularly dealing with the problem of water filling up diggings and their solution of digging a ditch to drain it off. He also asks that his "papers" be sent to California because "I would like, you know, to go on a sure footing."

Experiences on overland journey to California, May 1849, especially conflicts with Native Americans; comments on native Californians.

Contains 17 letters (65 pages total) from a native of Argyle, Maine, who worked at mining the gold fields in Sierra Nevada from 1866 to 1866. Most of the letters are written from California and Nevada to family members. 2 letters pre-date his time in California. Also includes one printed invitation to a "Social Dance" held at Bradbury Hall, Oldtown, Maine in 1854. Some of the topics covered include hearing Civil War news about the taking of Charleston and descriptions of a Native American funeral pyre ceremony near his cabin.

Letters to his mother, Juliana Gardiner, his brother Alexander Gardiner and to his brother-in-law, former President John Tyler. The letters describe his journey from New York across Mexico to the gold fields of California in 1849; life in early San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego; the California Constitutional Convention and politics; slavery; the people he encounters including Native Californians, Chinese, and African-Americans; the economy, including being a merchant, agriculture and whale hunting; and health conditions.

Diary of A.L. Baker during his time in Calif. during the gold rush as a miner and merchant, (Sept. 16, 1849 to June 1850.) He describes the conditions, prices of goods, politics, the Tuolumne Company's attempt at building a dam, Murphy's New Diggings, and the relations between different groups including Americans, Californians, Native Americans, Mexicans, Frenchmen and Bolivians. Also includes ledgers recording amount of gold collected on a particular day, costs for supplies and computations. Volume 2 consists of a typed transcription.

Booke & LeCount's Calif. letter book (50 p.) to various family members describing mining, Native Americans and life around Yreka City, Siskiyou County, Calif. Also includes LeCount & Strong envelope.

Contains information about gold mining in Yuba County, California possibly near Parks Bar, his agricultural holdings in Wisconsin, women's rights and the lack of women in the west and an attack of Native Americans against Chinese and whites.

Letter relating to Flavel Belcher's experience as a gold miner and Indian trader in California.

Letter relating to Flavel Belcher's experience as a gold miner and Indian trader in California.

Partial letter relating to Flavel Belcher's experiences as a gold miner and Indian trader in California.

Instructions for addressing conflicts with Native Americans around San Luis Obispo.

Comments on mining and Native Americans. With this, letter from his wife, May 25, 1851.

The Belcher family lived in Tioga County, New York and consisted of the parents, Joseph and Wealthy Whiting Belcher and five children: three sons, Horatio, Flavel, and Galitzen, and two daughters, Lucy and Maryette. Flavel and Galitzen relocated to New Orleans, the home of their sister, Lucy Valentine. When the news of the discovery of gold in California broke, the two brothers were among the first to join the rush and started a mercantile business in San Francisco. After traveling to California near the start of the Gold Rush, Flavel Belcher and his brother Galitizen ran a mercantile business in San Francisco.which lasted until a fire destroyed their building on May 4, 1851. By the summer of 1851, Flavel was operating as an Indian trader on one of O.M. Wozencraft's Native American reservations at the Forks of the Cosumnes River in El Dorado County.

Contains one leather bound journal (80 p.) of an Army surgeon assigned to Captain William H. Warner's expedition to the Sierra Nevada. Entries were recorded in two parts. The first part was recorded at the time Hewit was actually with the expedition and covers the period, August 1 to September 3, 1849. It contains dated entries with observations on illnesses, Native Californians, including their diet and enslavement by white settlers, Captain John Sutter, gold mining, bears digging up graves, emigrant trains, and his own long recuperation in Hawaii from a lingering illness.

Handwritten diary of a man traveling with a small group of men from El Paso, Texas, through Mexico, to the gold fields in California. Entries are mostly in ink (92 p.) with some in very faded pencil (34 p.). The journal begins with a list of names and home states in the party titled, "Roll of Recklass Fellows [sic]", followed by dated entries containing details of a long, difficult and ardous trip by horsback through the southwestern United States and Mexico border to California, and by ship to San Francisco and the gold fields. Details include descriptions of towns and terrain traveled through, dim prospects for gold in the Gila River, assaults, betrayals, robberies, deprivation, exhaustion, being lost, and conflicts and encounters with Native Americans. Includes his eyewitness account of men being attacked and robbed by their former leader of the first part of the expedition, Parker E. French, who was badly wounded in the conflict. Four men were killed in the assault and Salter writes that he thinks it is likely that French will also die from his wounds. Threatened by Native Americans, Salter's party decides to team up for a short period of time with another company led by William Miles, who was also part of the original expedition led by French. In other entries, Salter describes being lost and rescued by Native Americans who give them food rations and guide them to the correct trail. In another incident he writes of the company being attacked at night by 50 Native Americans who they fight off in hand to hand combat. Also includes details of his arrival in San Diego, his boat trip to San Francisco aboard the brig Victorine and his friendship with Captain Joseph Lamson, descriptions of San Francisco and its harbor, and gold mining in Sonora, California. Throughout the diary, Salter comments on the nature of men and the foolishness of anyone leaving the comforts of home for a harsher journey than they can ever imagine in return for so little reward.

Contains daily log of a California gold miner including his voyage from Connecticut. Corbin mined in Mariposa Creek, Mormon Bar, Agua Fria and Guadeloupe as well as other camp, keeping track of gold found and the expenses of mining. Includes descriptions of encounters with other miners including Mexican miners and Native Californians. Diary included 4 gold nuggets attached to pins.

Recollections of arrival at Bodega, July, 1840, on the Lausanne; Mexican and Russian officials; visit to Capt. Sutter with Peter Lassen; description of Native Americans; note on the naming of Mt. Shasta; service in Capt. Gantt's company supporting Gov. Micheltorena; journey to St. Louis and return, via Oregon, 1846-1848; gold discoveries, including those before 1848; life in early California. Recorded by Thomas Savage.

Describes to family back home life as a gold miner in Calif. and a treaty with a tribe of Native Californians.

Contains partial letter home describing a gold miners successes and failures gold mining on Horseshoe Bar on the American River in Calif. Also describes his interactions with local Native Americans.

Concerns daily life and living conditions in his mining claim near Angels Camp, Calif. Mentions numerous Mexicans, Chinese, and Native Americans living in the area.

Describes gold mining in Yuba, Butte and Sierra counties, trading of hides and deadly conflicts between settlers and Mormons and Native Americans.

Handwritten letter from a gold miner to a friend giving details of his voyage from New York to California and his work in the gold mines. He gives particular attention to Native Americans in the area that call themselves, " Diggers," and describes them in racist terms.

Handwritten letter from an Ohio miner to family back home describing his views on and experiences in California. Written in a Gregory's Express Letter Book (13 x 8 cm) with 29 blank pages at the end.

Manuscript letter from a struggling gold miner to his brother giving details of his current financial situation (losing $350 dollars) and the news of a gold rush to the Fraser River in British Columbia describing it as the disputed territory between the United States and the British Dominion. He gives precise coordinates of the disputed territory [exactly matching those of the Oregon Compromise of 1856] and expresses his opinion about the prospects of finding gold there as "considerable humbug." He adds that 15,000 miners have left for the Fraser River mines and offers that he may join them if the news proves to be true. He further speculates that there will be more wars with the Native Americans who reside in those territories as prospectors travel through the region.

Handwritten letter from a gold miner to a friend back home in Virginia (now West Virginia). Seymour describes the claim in Butte County on the Feather River he is currently mining.

Handwritten letter from a miner to his brother back home in New York.

Handwritten letter from Brigadier General Albert Maver Winn to the governor of California, John McDougall, regarding troop orders and recent confrontations in Nevada and California.

Three handwritten letters from a man to his friend at home back East. Details his difficult journey from Panama to San Francisco aboard the Steamship California, and his assessment of finding work in San Francisco. Describes Toole's journey east of San Francisco is search of finding a claim to mine.

The journal appears to be a transcription, into journal form, of the letters sent by Sumner to his family. An (empty) envelope included bears the title "Letters from Uncle Cyrus" in what appears to be the same hand as the transcription. Describes an overland journey from Grimsby, Ontario to above Sutter's Fort on the Bear River in California. Written in epistolary form to the author's brothers and sisters. Relates encounters with other travelers, Native Americans, military troops, Mormons, and Donner Party survivors, and details of daily life on the trail and in the gold fields. Portfolio 1 contains a typewritten transcription.

Three diaries (1851,1854,1854: some dated entries) and personal correspondence of Gold Rush miner, Charles van Houten, describing his travels from Sunbury, Ohio to Marysville, Calif. via Panama and experiences in California. Diaries provide details of travel, costs, dates of departure and arrival at various stops, money and gold nuggets sent home, and gold miner life such as conflicts with Native Americans, a smallpox epidemic spreading through the region, the discovery of a murdered miner's body, and the execution of an Indigenous person by hanging.

A letter from a gold miner from Mercer, Pennsylvania, working the gold areas in Amador County, California, to his sister. Pearson writes about contact with Native Americans who he describes thusly, "I was last evening at an Indian Fandango. You have perhaps read of the Indians dancing and singing. There were songs. It was truly one of the grandest sights you or I have ever witnessed." In a postscript, Pearson asks his sister to "Please burn this and let no one know it out of the family." Includes partial transcript.

A record (autograph manuscript) of Osborn's experiences mining on the Merced River; his move to Stockton in 1851, with a description of his brief stay first in San Francisco; his life in Stockton and his mercantile business. Entry, Dec. 26, 1850, comments on Chinese miners, and pasted on the page, is a specimen of Chinese writing from one of the miners. Pasted in at the end of the journal: clippings of letters he wrote from Stockton which were published in the Vineyard Gazette. Volume 2 consists of a typewritten transcript.

Comments on Chinese miners. Includes transcript.

Two tear sheets with prints illustrating article on lifestyle of gold miners in California, from Harper's Weekly, October 3, 1857 (p. 631-634). Sheets include text from article: Mining Life in California. Subjects of illustrations include Chinese miners, miners cooking over campfire in mountains, miners dancing, and miners playing gambling card games Monte and Faro.

Handwritten letter from a miner to his brother back home in New York.

Contains letter of miner and butcher discussing Mexicans, Chinese and Slavery.

D.P. Vail writes to his uncle Captain Robert F. Hand in Sag Harbor, N.Y. about the worsening crime San Francisco, the arrival of clipper ships, politics, etc. He writes about immigrants to California from the east and from China, mentioning that 5000 Chinese immigrants had arrived in the previous week. He also writes about Black laborers in the mines and reports on the high rate of unemployment and destitution in general in San Francisco. He remarks that returning to California after being home has made him less eager to stay in California.

Letter from Merritt to his young son, Jesse, describing the Chinese community.

Content/Description:Upper image: mining camp scene with Chinese men eating, shaving and braiding hair, working with picks, etc. Lower image: interior of gambling house with several tables surrounded by Chinese men; games in progress.