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Bassett, Jonathan.

[Downieville , California gold rush letter].

Downarsville [Downieville], Sierra County, California: January 13, 1854. 8vo bifoilium. 4 pp. manuscript letter.

A rich and engaging gold rush era letter illuminating the mining techniques, plight, and dashed hopes of those who ventured out west in search of quick riches.

Addressed to "absent & dear friends," Bassett pens this missive to inform them of his trying situation at present. Having health troubles of "rumates [rheumatism] & a cold on the lungs"—but health improving—he has lately only been working "part of the time" due to a dearth of rain: "i am in dry diggins without water & that is the trouble with thousans so far wating for rane." He relates there has been little to no precipitation since last spring; however, in the last 36 hours, "it is raning now very hard" and "we ar in hopes that it will come enough so that the miners can go to work." There are five men including Basset in his company, and he offers a lively snapshot of their mining operation which includes both sluice and drifting gold claims:

it takes som [men] to pick & shovel & som to wheel & some to wash the durt we have slucen clames that is to shovel the durt from the top down to the bed rock in to long troth whare the water runes some times 4 hundred fete to wash the durt from the gold driften claims in to run a hole under ground like a wood chuck on the rock then to whell out the durt in a whell barrow or run it out in a car by hand to wash som has you in 400 fete inder ground there rocks whare they has to drill & blast som has done well & some has lost all by the operation

He relates he "never saw so meny without money as thare is here in my life." Nine times out of ten, he explains, even when someone makes a few thousand dollars in mining, they lose it all developing another claim. Basset proceeds to remark upon his own personal luck—or lack thereof—in these parts:

i made some then went in to a plase & lost $300 dollars now have bought in againe & pade $400 & 45 dollars dont no how it will turne out this time but i must keep trying hit or miss i hant [ain’t] a lone in loses or croses

Speaking to the lot of his own five-man company, he notes "thare is a man with me that has ben in this country over 2 years & not a sent in his pocket & is owing & thare is a good meney in the same five that I no of rite around me." He declares, "calafornia is not what it is cracked up to be," and wishes he had "node as much a bout calafornia as I no now." Nevertheless, he holds out for the promise of quick riches: "if a man is luckey he can do beter som makes thare pile in a sort time but that hant my luck."

Although Bassett finds the climate congenial, he relates he has been "fearfull & meney times lonsem this is the most trying contarey that I ever saw most ups & downs on everey side I wish that i had stayed to home & prevented everey loss." With or without money and “if i live,” he tells his family: "I think that I shall try to come home to stay thare for i se that it makes but little ods whare a man is he hant but a short time to live eney how." The big strikes, he notes misrepresent the larger reality: “all of the big strikes that ar made here ar sent to the states and nothing sed about them that ar making nothing that is what makes meney fooles to leve thare good homes & come here & make nothing.”

In closing, he confesses that he has "made nothing" over the last nine months and has recently moved 3 miles from Downieville.

A vivid letter capturing the harsh difficulties of the California gold miner’s life.

CONDITION: Very good, old folds.

Item #4373

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