Gold Rush Era Letters

San Francisco July 22nd 1852.

My Dear Mother, Sister, & Brother,

I now sit down to inform you of my doings &c since my arrival at this place & although it is but a short time since I wrote you I hope that a few lines now will be acceptable.

I have thus far enjoyed very good health & am as happy as I could expect to be under existing circumstances. I believe I wrote you in my last that I was going to try my luck at the mines where I hoped to meet S. P. Tucker [Samuel P. Tucker]. Acting accordingly I took the Steamer for Stockton Saturday afternoon the 10th inst & arrived at S. the next morning after a ride of 120 miles. We spent the Sabbath there & the next morning took the stage for Angels Creek a distance of 70 miles when we arrived at 5. Oclock. We then took our valises blankets & I started off on foot for Murphys Camp a part of the diggings situated 7 miles from Angels Creek. We proceeded about 20 miles when one of our party was taken sick & we we were obliged to camp in the woods for the night. I rested very well although we heard wolves barking around us several times during the night. At 3 Oclock in the morning we resumed our journey and arrived at Murphys at sunrise pretty well tired out. The first building we saw was a sawmill driven by steam when they charge 12 cts per foot for sawing lumber. It is owned by a company from Maine & they will get rich in a short time

I recieved [received] by last mail beside your letter, one from Miss Lewis, one from J. A. Tucker, one from S. B. Stone and one from a friend of mine in Maine --

All of them were very acceptable, and I do not see how I should get along if I was to miss hearing from home, for months as some of my acquaintances do. I should think Samuel Tucker, would want to write his Mother as often as he has an opportunity of sending a letter to her, but perhaps she could not answer them all, as you do mine, so he thinks there is no need of his writing oftener than he does --

I do not hear from Sam, very often although I always answer all of his letters very soon after I receive them. He has not written me now for about two months, but I have heard from him once or twice since he last wrote. I think he is well and I do not doubt but what he is doing very well. Still I know but little of his affairs. He never writes much about his business, so I never ask any questions with regard to it. I do not know but what I shall make him a visit next spring or summer, and try my fortune at mining again, for a few days, as it is now a long time since I have been to the mines and I think a trip of a few days away from San Francisco would do me good.

A young man by the name of Edward Waters, from the State of Maine will leave here next Saturday for home ---

He is one old friend of mine and you may have heard me speak of him before now, as we were at Tucker Shaw & Co's at the same time.

He arrived here the same year that I did, in the month of August, but I think he is now obliged to borrow the means of getting home with, for he has been sick, some here, and has been unfortunate otherwise, but has finally made up his mind that he may as well go home now, as to stay here any longer, as there is no better prospect ahead for him now than there was a year ago -----

I was surprised to hear that, Dr Parker, and Capt Robinson were intending to leave Pepperell, and then form what you write I think that Mrs Sewell will join Parks at Wisconsin.

A few more such changes in P. and it will never seem like home to me again, and it must seem odd to you also. I do not think you can