Q.David Bowers
Conversations were spiced with profanity. The gold areas had no room for pretentious or sham, Religion was seldom practiced on the Sabbath. Instead, it provided the occasion for more drinking and card playing than usual. Names such as Rough and Ready, Groundhog's Glory, Puke Ravine, Lousy Ravine, Gitup and Git, Brandy Gulch, Gouge Eye, Hangtown, and Hell's Delight given to mining camps indicate the tenor of life there.
Life in a mining camp, Rich Bar, was chronicled by Mrs. L A. K. Clapp, a lady who was the wife of a physician and who wrote a narrative under the pseudonym of "Shirley."
"Shirley" and her husband started their journey to the gold fields on mules. After an exceedingly rough trip during which they strayed thirty miles out of their way and ran. considerable risk of being attacked by Indians they reached their destination around the middle of September 1851. They stopped in what was called the hotel, the only two-story building in the place. It was built of planks of the roughest description had two or three glass windows (a luxury unknown in all of the other dwellings in Rich Bar), and a roof covered with canvas. Nearly the entire front of the hotel was covered by a huge canvas sign on which was painted in immense letters THE EMPIRE. "Shirley's" narrative follows:
Upon entering, the first apartment was the barroom, trimmed with crimson calico from the midst of which gleamed a large mirror flanked and set off with rows of decanters, cigar vases, and jars of brandied fruit.
A table covered with green cloth, upon which were a pack of monte cards, a backgammon board, and piles of trashy novels, together with a few uncomfortable-looking benches, completed the furniture of that portion of the apartment constituting the barroom. The other side did duty as a store and shop, where velveteen and leather, flannel and calico, lay indiscriminately mixed up with ham, preserved meats, cans of oysters, and groceries.
From the barroom a flight of four steps descended to the parlor, which was carpeted with straw matting and contained a looking glass, a sofa 14 feet long by 11/2 feet wide covered with red calico, a red table with a green cover, six cane-bottomed chairs, red calico curtains, cooking stove, and a rocking chair.
From the parlor another flight of four steps led to a narrow hall on the second story of the house, on each side of which were four bedrooms, 8 by 10 feet in size, the floors of which were covered with straw matting. The windows of wooden lattice work were festooned with curtains of the all-pervading crimson calico. Each chamber had a tiny table covered with oil cloth and a bedstead so heavy that nothing short of a giant's strength could move it. All floors were so uneven that from one point to another, even in the same room, there was either an ascent or descent; or the surface might be called rolling.
The doors were made of slight wooden frames, covered with dark blue cotton drilling, and hung on leather hinges. The dining room of the establishment was of the most primitive description or, in other words, on a par with everything else about the place; and yet this was one of the fine houses of early mining times and there were few better and none more pretentious in any of the remoter mountain towns.
Before "Shirley" came to Rich Bar she had heard many accounts about the doctor's office, which was the only one in the area. It was described as being quite extraordinary, so she had an eager anticipation of seeing it for the first time. Upon arrival she found that it was so much different from what she expected that she laughed until she cried.
The office consisted of a building ten feet long and not quite as wide. It had no floor except the earth, but a bench composed of two rough planks ran along two of the sides. In one corner of the rear was a sort of nondescript table on which was ranged the medical library consisting of a half dozen volumes, and behind it on shelves, which looked like sticks hastily snatched from a woodpile and nailed up without trimming, was an imposing array of medicines. In front a white canvas window stared everybody in the face with the information, painted in perfect capitals, but not quite as tall as those of the Empire House, that this was the DOCTOR'S OFFICE.
In addition to "Shirley" there apparently were only three or four other women at Rich Bar. One was the 25-year-old hostess of the Empire House who had a complexion described as being "tanned to a dark and apparently permanent yellow by her trip across the plains." It was related that:
Upon setting out for California she had left in her old home a nursing baby eight months old together with two other children; and now she had a two week old infant, which during most of the time its mother was engaged in cooking for guests and patrons of the house, liked kicking furiously in its champagne-basket cradle, and screaming.
Another woman was usually known as the "Indiana girl," from the name of her father's hotel. Still anotherwas a slight girl, just 68 pounds in weight, who was the mother of three children and the wife of a man who operated the Miner's House, a bar.
Women were rare throughout all of the mining camps, especially in the early years. In 1850 hundreds of prostitutes came to work in the camps and mining saloons. On October 23rd of that year the Pacific News reported that 900 prostitutes were expected from France. However, only about 50 actually arrived. In another instance a famous prostitute claimed to have earned $50,000.
In the mining camps the place of women at dances was often taken by a man who would wear a white band on his arm or other indication that he was the "female" partner. Miners would often travel far just to see a newly-arrived woman or view with mock ecstasy some piece of feminine apparel. One man related that he traveled 40 miles to behold a woman.
A number of ventures to import women were initiated. Kidnapped females from the Marquesas Islands were brought to the mining camps, as were Indian women. One Mrs. Farnham issued a notice in New York in February 1849 offering to take a number of respectable women, not over 25 years of age, to California, each person to contribute $250 to the expenses. The organizer fell sick, so the project was temporarily postponed. A good number of miners married Indians or Mexicans who were in greater evidence. One miner took three or four Indian squaws as wives and became the head of a large household.
In the early days of mining the sudden abundance of gold lowered the value of the metal at the mines. In November 1848 it was reported that an ounce of gold would be occasionally traded for a silver dollar and that miners would buy an ounce of gold from the Indians by paying 50cfor it. It was typical at the mines to sell gold dust for $4 an ounce, and seldom was more than $8 to $10 realized. The Indians in particular helped to lower the value of gold, for they did not realize its true value and would exchange it for trinkets and other things that appealed to them. Gradually the Indians gained experience and grew wiser. Rates were established and prices were posted.