Hosea Dudley

the afternoon, wages are high at carpenters get 12 to $15 per month day the materials for a house 12 feet square ready to put up brings 800 to $1200. Stopt at Bernecia which is a government station saw several vessels were lying there, but very few buildings most of the inhabitants living in tents

on the 4th at night we arrived at this place after working our passage most of the way up the river in getting the ser off the sand bars, and almost eaten up with mosquitoes. For miles each side of the river the country is perfectly level covered with rushes, or as they are called here (tooleys) some of which measure 15 or 20 feet in length and are 1 1/2 inches in diameter in the wet season this land is all overflowed with water on the hills bordering the Bays as we came up we saw numerous herds of cattle feeding among the wild oats with which the hills were white.

We found a great many people at Stocton, mostly living in tents.

Saw an evidence of sivilisations in a gallows) on which they hung a man the day before we arrived, for Robbing, & murder. We camped on the ground near the gallows and slept soundly with nothing but blankets for a covering, the Climat is delightful being entirely different from San Francisco, warm days and cool nights The place lies at the head of a small creek about three miles from the San Joaquin the ground on which the town is laid out is beautifuly situated being level and shaded with numerous beautiful oaks which cover the country for miles arround.

Sunday Aug 20

Last Monday we arrived here at what is called "Sullivans diggings" which are on a ravene that empties into the Tualunie river on the North side and about 15 miles from Stockton in an Easterly direction. We left Stockton on Monday the 13th near sunset there were about 40 in our company with three ox teams & waggons on which were piled our baggage and provisions for which we had to pay $25.00 per hundred lbs for transportation from Stockton to this place

On Thursday the 16th we arrived at the Stanislaws river at what is called Knights crossing, here we stoped two nights, on one of which the kyotes as Indians carried off our fry pan for which I gave them credit. There were a company of 16 men at work here washing for gold but found but little. What there is is fine and pure didn't old Knights coffee & beans suffer some, and faith that was about everything he had in the provisions line

[upper left] 5

On the way here we saw some game as pigeons quails & antelope we killed some pigeons, and Pierpont and I went in quest of a herd of antelope and succeded in driving one fine fellow into the midst of our people, and if there had been but one man he would probably have killed him but as they were thirty or forty he got away safe and sound

I find that this life agrees with me perfectly well although we fare hard and lay on the ground with nothing but our blankets, and the sky above us and a most beautiful sky it is always bright and studded most brilliantly with stars, one evening we had a few drops of rain but not enough to moisten the earth at all which is parched and dry At Knight we left most of our company and we came on here with about a dozen others we found the country very hilly and broken with deep ravines down which in the winter the water rushes in torrents tis said only travelling nearly impossible here now and then we begin to see the pine mingleing with the oak with which the country is covered but the ground is entirely destitute of grass or under brush

Sullivans Tyernys lay at the bottom of a deep ravine between high hills opening towards the west there are quite a number of people at work here not I am told near as many as formerly. The ground has been completely dug up some of it two or three times, a portion is wet and requires pumps to keep the water out at the holes while they work them after digging fifteen or twenty feet deep they come to slate rock on the top of which and in the crivices is found the gold on small lumps from one of downwards and from the appear-ances of having been melted, but few are fortunate enough to strike upon it in digging

[right side] Sep [September] 2^nd 1849

Two weeks digging gold has satisfied me that if men make their fortunes by gold digging good luck has sometimes to do with it and hard labour more

Emerson got enough of it on a week and last Tuesday he started for San Francisco formed an acquaintance with a Phineas Davis a relative of Honest John Davis ex Governor of Mass. laboured in company with him the last week yesterday we went up at the Sanorean Camp which is about 3 miles from this on the way we passed the hole where tis said that there was a piece of gold taken out weighing 27lbs it is over thirty feet deep and goes by the name of the Eliphant

Jacksonsvill [Jacksonville]], Tuolumnie river [centeered]

[right side] Sunday Feb {february]10^th 1850

More than five months have passed since I last wrote in this Book five months! how quickly they have passed. When ones time is fully occupied, time glides by un marked and mine has been every moment I might say, the last of September I left Sullivans and went south on a prospecting tour , crooped the Tuolunie round Mercede rivers and travelled over the MerryPorer diggings, there I found one piece of gold that weighed 6oz sold 3 gueneys was gone three weeks from Sullivans diggings, on my return found Pierpoint making arrangements to go down to San Francisco or some other place to look him up some land, intending to turn farmer. Heys & myself immediat3ly came over to Jacksonvill where we now are, there were many People here at that time working on the river & on woods erects Went to work on the river uner... with Percy Gardner from Sixth Adams NY and done very well for a while until the rains commenced which caused the river to rise which drove us out of our hole this was about the first of November our best days work was one pound and a quarter of gold took out nine pounds in three weeks, after leaving our place on the river we Pitched our tent over, and Prepared for winter, which we anticipated would be long cold wet and dreary but we have been hapily disappointed so far, we have had no snow that did not melt as fast as it fell here in the valley at least, although the mountains have been dressed in robes of white quite a number of times there has been but one heavy rain and that lasted but three days but there fell a great quantity of water, causing small streams that were nearly dry a week before to go forming and tumbling along like mighty rivers as they were, the river itself flowed on in all its pride with its banks full to overflowing

The weather has been so far as warm and mild as may the hills look fresh and green and banks of flowers are seen wherever you go, altogether the country looks far Pleasanter than in summer when everything is parched and dry.

We have passed the winter very pleasantly so far, doing something most of the time, Heys went down to San Francisco the last of December after letters, he was gone between three and four weeks as the travelling was very bad, his experience were a very little short of

about a month ago we bought a pit saw for which we paid $50,00 since which time we have been sawing boards and making cradles for washing gold. For a few weeks back the people remained here have been forming into companies for the purpose of damming the river & turning it out of the channell when it goes down in the dry season

Oct [October] 7th 1850 Wrote to Hiram Carsley, Directed to Lynn

Oct [October] 7th 1850 Wrote to Silas B. Emmerson San Francisco

Oct [October] 7th 1850 Wrote to M. S. Lawrence

Oct [October] 7th 1850 Wrote to T. S. Bigalow San Francisco

Oct [October] 7th 1850 Wrote to Samual Dudley Waterford, Maine

Oct [October] 21 1850 Wrote to Lucinda Dudley by Trefethen Boston

[on right side] Jacksonville Aug [Auguust] 21^st 1853

Here is a gap of nearly three long years since I last took my pen, to record any circumstance that has transpired in my life. It has been long for with me it has been a constant struggle with fate or something else, and fate has generally got the best of it. But still, it has not deprived me of all enjoyment, there are some bright spots on which memory delights to linger. But tis useless to write in this style. I will drop it confine and for my own satisfaction, hereafter not [note] down a few facts and circumstances, that have come under my observation since I last wrote in this book.

In the Spring of 1850, Myself P. Gardner Perry Gardner of North Adams & George B Keyes, of Brattleboro, Vermont, opened a store and commenced trading. We continued in partnership untill [until] late in the fall of the same year, when Perry Gardner sold out, and we went in Partnership with Alonzo McCloud, of North Adams, Massachusetts. In the fall of of 1850, Gardner, Keyes & myself, had mining Claims in companys on the river for cannalling [canaling], to get into the bed of the river. But they nearly all proved a failure, and, with the sums we had trusted to other members of the same companys, we were nearly thrown on our beam ends, but we did succede [succeed] in weathering it, but it was a close rub. In Feb [February] of 1851, about the middle of the month, I started with Col. John Bascom Myrick, of Lewiston Maine for San Francisco after we arrived there, we concluded to take a prospecting tour up the coast towards Oregon. And as I had left Keyes at Jacksonvile [Jacksonville] to attend to the business, I went. We went up in the Gen Warren or Comd. Brebel an old propeller, to Trinidad, California on a small bay up the coast above San Francisco about 250 miles, from there we travelled onto the Klamath river nearly up to Orleans bar, where we were compelled to stop as the snows & rains prevented us from proceding [proceeding] further. We then came back to Trinidad and from there down the coast about 20 miles to Union town there we packed our animals, and went up to the

[top right] M

[near top of page, in childish handwriting]

to Alice

[towards bottom of page, in childish handwriting]

to Alice Dudley

Alice Dudley

DD.