Gold Rush Era Letters

Campo Seco June 13/55 [1855]

Dear Father & Mother

Since I wrote my Last nothing now has Transpired Worth speaking of but I thought I would write to let you know that we were all well. in your letter of the 11th of feb [February] you asked me to give you a description of the land and the products of the soil. now this is easy done for the soil is of any description from the poorest to the richest from land that will produce twenty nine pound cabbage or turnips three feet in circufferance [circumference] and onions that will weigh a pound and a half a piece to rocky barren soil that would not raise a mustard plant. all kinds of grain grows well I have been told by farmers last year that their crops averadged [averaged] sixty bushels to the acre and some more than this and the price of land varys [varies] as much as the products. good land near the cities is valued very high but as you go back the value recedes until you come to places where you can get good land for taking it up but farming hardly pays. Wheat sold last fall in Sacremento [Sacramento] at seventy five cts [cents] per bushel. when a man has paid for his seed paid for help to work the soil paid for gathering and cleaning it and bags to put it in he has little for himself after he has paid freight on it to market and what will tend to keep the price down is the close of Oregon and Washington Territories that is mostly a farming community and they have no market for their surplus grain except California. is was told last fall that there was lots of wheat fields left in Oregon last year because the price was so low that it would not pay for cutting it. Freight from oregon [Oregon]

then pace, though at times I am heartily tired of the drudgery and painful toil, the selfishness and meanness which I am compelled frequently to encounter. I am not without hope of success, at least in a moderate way, — although the result of my past voyages are not yet drawn out from present operations and set apart by themselves, as so much made.

Every body here, and all along this Coast, as far as Panama, are in a great state of excitement, on account of the news of the discovery of the Gold Mines in California. When I arrived in California, last June, the first important discoveries were made. These were succeeded by others, more and more rich, until I left the Coast the first of Sept^r [September]. Yet in Calif^a [California] there was not half the excitement which prevails here and all along the coast of South America. I will not bore you with a description of the mines, as doubtless the newspapers are full of them by this time, and you are tired of the subject — at least I am. I have been asked so many questions since I arrived here that I have learned to hate the sound of the word "gold-mine" — I landed the Bearer of Despatches [Dispatches] in my vessel, at Payta — Lieut Loesser — U. S. A., who took to Washington the first official intelligence of the discovery of the mines. ~ How rapidly time flies! I can scarcely realise [realize] that two years have passed since we left the U.S. I hope that in two years more, we shall all be on our way home; and I most sincerely pray that He who sends health and all other blessings may grant you full and Entire restoration. — I have become a poor letter=writer, and I must now inflict a few lines upon Jay.

With many wishes for your health and happiness Believe me to be, as Ever Truly and sincerely Yours Henry D.

Lieut Loesser, took among other letters, a most beautifully written description of the Gold mines, by the Rev Walter Colton — sent to the Editors of the National Intelligencer. M^r Colton read the letter to me, at Monterey before sealing it. If you have a file of that paper — and have read it, I think you will have been pleased with the letter.