ALS to his father.

"THERE IS AS MUCH GOLD IN CALIFORNIA AS PEOPLE IN A THOUSAND YEARS CAN DIG UP."

Holograph ms in ink on blue paper. Written on three sides of a single sheet folded to make 4pp. Some separation and chips from old folds, a little soiled with ink stains, remnants of wax seal. Marysville, 25 March,

Early news from the California gold fields. An excellent survival. Fisher opens his letter with an account of his journey to the goldfields - the familiar route from New York to San Francisco via Panama.

 

Having reached San Francsico, Fisher teams up with five others, one of whom he  refers to throughout as simply the "Forty-niner." That Fisher had received only a rudimentary education is evident from his spelling, which we've not altered (unless necessary for comprehension): "I stayed in San Francisco one weak and then six of us boys bought a bote and four months provisions and ship for the mines. We was fifteen days from Marysvill wich is too hundred and twenty miles ... When we got there it was most night after we had cook our supers and eat it it morning came ... and went too work In three weeks and got three hundred dollars it reign and snooed all the time I was there. There is a much gold in Californey as peopple in a thousing years will dig up. all the riveres have got gold in them."

 

Fisher then comments on the fluctuating prices of staples such as flour, and wages for carpenters and joiners, work he can do but isn't as lucrative as being in the mines. "I shall go to the mines on the north yuba river as soon as the snow gets off from the mountains so a man can work and not freeze to death. I shall not send home you any money if you can get a long with out it for I cannot get as much for this gold here as I can get in the states. If my health is good through the season I can get [two] or [three] thousand dollars and et home next winter and if I should get into a rich place I could get as much gold as I could lift. [The] country is delightful and pleasant and I am well pleased with it ..."

 

The Yuba River is one of the most famous sites of the California Gold Rush. It is a major tributary of the Feather River and runs through the Sacramento Valley. The Yuba itself has three headwaters and in the early years of the Gold Rush gold could be panned for using sluices, rocker boxes etc. After about a decade, this simple method was replaced by mechanised mining with bucket line dredges.

Stock Code: 244860