Nevada City, November 8, 1850.
Dear Brother,
The time has again rolled round for me to write to you. I received your th letter dated August 19 and was verry mutch hurt to think you were
all sick and it makes me anxious to hear from you again but I hope and trust you are all well by this time.
This is the fourth letter I have wrote to you since I have been in this Country and I am verry sorry that I cannot write you as good news in this letter as in my other when I wrote. I thought I had my fortune made but it turned
out so hard to work that we could not get mutch dirt out we have to go 15 feet down and the water is so bad that we have to leave and hunt some other diggins for the rainny season.
The Cholaree is verry bad in Sacramento but it has not spread any yet nor do I think it will or at least way up hear in the mountains.
Jessie Franklin is in Navada has not heard from you all for 2 months. It is verry healthy in the mines at present in fact I believe it is one of the healthiest countrys in the world for to see so many people so exposed so few deaths if I was to go through in Missouri what I go through hear it would kill me directly and believe me sometimes I wish this was my home and you were all out here a man could live on a farm in the valley with ease and like a king but it is not my home and I will not say any more about it.
We have got a house built to spend the winter in all of the neighbours boys are well and a great many would go home if it was not for the Chollarie but they are good for California this
winter for my part I do not care about going home unless I cannot make annything and when I see I can't then I am coming and verry shortly they could not get but one claim there or they would have made there pile.
Provitions are plenty here in the mines flour is 20 cts per lb Pork 40 cts lb Potatoes 30 cts lb beef from 25 to 30 cts lb them prices are considered low so you see that a man has to make money write fast to make anything to lay by for bread meat and coffee it costs me one dollar per day and cook it myself.
Now I must tell you something about Navada when I first saw it had about 15 or 20 houses in it and 2 times as large as Brunswick and one
half are Gambling houses every Saturday night many poor miners leave ther weeks earnings.
November 10 I am as well as usual all the boys are well the Chollery is still ragin in Sacrament City and it has been rumoured that it was in Navada but I think it was falce so if you see in
the papers any thing about it you nead not be uneasy for it cannot come in the mines for the air is too pure.
It is reported here that you have turned Whig but I had as soon believe black is white the whigs try to pleag me about it they think you have done two smart things in one year one is not coming to California and the other turning whig.
R.H. Thomas and B. Kendrick talk of going home on the December Steamer and get home about the first of February that is if the Cholery is not two bad. I have not one word from Francess or Major since I left home
One hundred years ago today, a young man, working in the diggings of Nevada City, wrote a letter to his brother, telling of the conditions of this mining camp in its hey-day. The letter was loaned to The Nugget by Charles Gillet, Stamford, Texas, who explains that the writer of the letter was his grandfather.
There is no explanation of where the young miner came from before he was in California, although his letter mentions Missouri, and a town named Brunswick.
The letter will be photostated and placed on display in the Nevada County Historical Society museum, as the original letter is to be returned to the Texas family, which wrote they wish to keep it as a heirloom for at least another hundred years.
The letter (verbatim):
One hundred years agoa homesick youth describes the diggings and its healthiness from The Nugget November 10, 1950.
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