An evocative letter documenting domestic and dream life in a small California gold-mining town by a woman who ventured from Kentucky to California with her miner husband. Born in Livingston, Kentucky, Lovina Terry Padon Barnes (1833–1916) married Thomas Bartholomew Barnes Jr. (1830–1905) in 1853, and sometime before 1859 they moved.....
![Item #8889 [Autograph letter, signed, from a California gold miner to his brother in Maine.]....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8889_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1729109613)
An earnest letter by a gold miner from Maine on the difficulties and hopes of his new life in California, as well as the broader gold rush scene. Writing from Mormon Island to his brother John H. Oliver, who lived in Bath, Maine, Henry M. Oliver (1808–1876) begins this letter.....
A vivid letter by a doctor from Missouri who immigrated to gold rush California, describing his medical practice and a startling case of vigilante justice involving a serial violent criminal who killed a man in a whorehouse. Writing to his relative Thomas B. Nesbit (1822–1890), who was a circuit judge.....