Firsthand Accounts from the California Gold Rush

Account 1: Excerpt from a Letter from Austin Hibbard to his brother William Hillard (September 1850)

September 8, 1850
Have worked all the week. Have put up some berths in the log house here. Tuesday, pick axe & shovel in hand went into the diggings in the valley not far from our house. Last night weighed our gold & found we had dug in fine clays $98.50. If we can do as well we shall stay here a spell & dig, but I find digging is a very uncertain business. May do well today & nothing at all tomorrow. We shall keep on however till we lack turns & see that we cannot make it pay. God of His great mercy has preserved me & in health has brought me through great fatigues & exposure to this place in good health & trust still in his goodness for myself & the dear ones in that far off home which I scarcely grant myself to think of.
California is a beautiful country & but for the great scarcity of water in the dry season & the excess of it in the wet would be one of the finest countries in the world.

September 15, 1850
Greenwood Valley. Fatigued with a hard weeks work & must write a few words. Digging still holds out pretty well. Have made in the two weeks we have been here $175.00 in Gold.

September 22, 1850
Still at Greenwood diggings. Our new claim failed to pay as we wanted & we bought into another paying $6.67 for two thirds of a large claim which had been paying pretty well. It still continues to pay us at ½ an ounce or more per day for each day’s work which is pretty well. No letters from home & no news from the city as I had hoped.

The Independent Gold Hunter on his Way to California by N. Currier (ca. 1849)

Account 2: Excerpt from the Diary of David Knapp Pangborn (1850 - 1852)

But alas, how woefully are they disappointed, for I [tell] you that it is the truth for I know it to be the case. That not one in 500 make $50000 a year. And not more than one in a hundred, that makes more than his expenses. We were fortunate enough however to fall in with a party of men who had found very good diggings, they took us to the place and were very kind in giving us all necessary instructions. At first we could only make from 3 to $5.00 a day which would hardly board us but in a short time we improved so that we could make from 12 to 16 dollars a day. After working about a month I was taken sick with the fever & ague. It was then & not until then that I realized what I had sacrificed in coming here. Instead of the soft couch, with the hand of affection to arrange the pillow for my [your] burning head, it was a blanket or two spread upon the ground & the hands of strangers that ministered to my wants. Often in my troubled dreams was I at home receiving all those attentions which I so much needed and awoke to find myself alone in the tent burning with fever, parched with thirst and no one to give me a drink or to [m] relieve me in any way.

The poorest kind of medical attendance was all that could be procured, and all the alleviating necssaries [necessaries], and petits soins which a sick person needs were out of the question, they could not at that time be procured. After laying on my bed a month I got better and in strolling about got acquainted with a family from Missouri by the name of Hamilton. Mrs. H. was very kind to me. And to her & a kind of providence I woe my life. Having got somewhat better, the party that I was with having got out of diggings that would pay were obliged to go and look for others one offered to remain with me, but I did not think it necessary, I was so much better.