California Gold Rush Letters: Indian Massacre, Claim Jumpers and an Eccentric Manuscript Map of Sacramento
"If anybody trys to jump our claims, they will be very likely to get their eyes put out."
An amazing group of 19 autograph California Gold Rush letters from Ralph Cushman Worthington, to sister Cornelia S. Worthington Ford (1824-1901), her husband William Roderick Ford (1811-), and other relatives in Hinsdale, Massachusetts. Plus an additional letter dated May 25, 1850, written in New Orleans by Dr. Henry W. Jackson in which he compares the overland vs. sea route via Panama to California (see below).
Ralph Cushman Worthington went to try his luck in the California gold fields in 1851. His first California letter is dated from Sacramento on November 23, 1851, where he was then employed "discharging vessels, sacking flour &c . . . but I have one consolation & that is of seeing the elephant head & tail. There is a bull fight nearly every Sunday for which you may pay $2.00 or not see it. I chose the later. All business except public is done on Sunday, the gambling & ___ houses are kept open & men of rank visit them." On December 23, 1851, he reports that the few attendees at church were "dressed in their everyday suits, dirty & lousy, for people in this country can't live here without getting more or less lice on them."
"Seeing the Elephant, Head & Tail"
The term "seeing the elephant" during the California Gold Rush era symbolized the experience of encountering the harsh realities and challenges that came with seeking fortune in the gold fields. Worthington's humorous take on the saying, that he had seen the elephant, "head & tail" suggests he experienced much hardship. Prospectors used the basic phrase to describe their adventures and the often-disillusioning experiences they faced, such as grueling travels, labor-intensive mining, lawlessness, and the struggle to survive in a competitive and unforgiving environment. This expression encapsulated the mix of excitement, anticipation, and ultimately the hardship and disappointment that many faced in pursuit of their dreams of striking it rich in California. It also reflects the broader theme of the American frontier experience, where high hopes were all too often squashed by the tough realities of pioneer life.
A Gold Seeker's Unique "Birds Eye View" Map of Sacramento
A letter dated March 9, 1852 describes the Great Sacramento Flood of 1852, and is accompanied by a separate sheet with his elaborate full-page manuscript map of Sacramento. This eccentric production is a true exemplar of 19th-century California vernacular cartography. It is styled by its maker "a bird's eye view of Sac city," and includes a detailed key to locations which is titled "Explanation of my superior map."
Described by Worthington - with tongue very much in cheek - as based on "guess work," the map actually appears to be based on his keen first-hand observation. The key lists 25 different points of interest, including banks, churches, and other institutions.
...every corner is occupied with a store or something else all in the utmost confusion & irregularity, in fact there is nothing regular but the streets, it is first verry nice & peety & then rough mudy & loathsome. J & K St as far back as 6th & 7th is the business part of the city, one can get anything here that he wants if he has got the money & the nicest dry goods I ever saw I bought me a good pair of boots & paid $8.00, a cup for $2.00, a pair of large bed blankets for $8.00, a pound of candles for .50 cts. &c. &c. Their paper is worth 2 cts pr. sheet the retail price of things is about twice as much ...
The map is drawn in ink, over a lightly penciled street grid, with numbered streets indicated along the right-hand side. Among the sites identified on this wonderful map (transcriptions faithful to Worthington's idiosyncratic spelling):
- An ampatheatre for bull & bear fights on Sundayes
- Sutter's Fort
- two roads labeled "To the Mines"
- rode to Jackson & Mokelumne Hill
- a horse race course
- a low sunken hole where the citizens & city authorities send all their offal, the nastyest place I ever saw, full of dead rats, manure &c &c.
- Dr. Whit's site on a hill, A beautiful place
- Cemetery on a hill, Mr. D. Peirce was buried here
- American River
- Sac[ramento] River
- Washington steam boat
The letter that accompanies the map includes his detailed eyewitness account of the flood that devastated Sacramento in March of 1852. The letter is dated March 9, but includes further emendations through March 12 (the mailing envelope is postmarked March 13 at Sacramento):
I believe that when I wrote you last I noticed that it was raining & so it was & has been ever since with but little cesation, the rivers commenced rising & continued to rise untill Saturday night last about 12 o'clock at night when the levee broke away on the American River up by Sutter's Fort & by the Slue a little below the junction of the A & Sac rivers & came rushing in to the city with astonishing rapidity carrying off houses, cattle, hogs, poultry, &c., &c.. It would have its course, it came in & filled up the back part of the city first (which is the lowest ground) from there it came on slowly but shure untill it reached the levee on inside then it grew higher & higher untill Monday morn when it could be seen that it had reached its highth & was receeding the levee had broken away down the river about 8 miles & the water was running out as fast... It will be impossible for me at this as any future time to tell you the amount of damage and suffering that it has occasioned but as near as I can judg it is immense not only to this city but Marysville is almost destroyed ...
After leaving Sacramento, Worthington's next letter is dated from nearby Colusa, California on March 20, 1852.
His next 12 letters are dated from Big Bar, in Trinity County, in the northern part of California, and from nearby Ounce Bar and Eagle Riffle.
On May 16, 1852 he describes his small company's claim:
We are in the mountains between 3 & 4 hundred miles from Sac - City about northwest on the Trinity river which runs southwest, empties into the Klamath about 30 miles from its mouth which empties into the Pacific on the Oregon Coast.... It is very rely in consequence of the mining that is done on it above mostly at Weaver some 20 miles above Ounce Bar so called because miners could make their oz per day is on the South bank formed as most suppose by a slide from the mountain displacing the rivers & causing it to run in another channel . . . There must be about 8 acres of good pay dirt, of which we hold 1/2 of it. . . . .We do not let any one know anything about what we are doing or what we intend to do for several reasons, one of which is we [don't] wish to be molested.... We do not want many miners to come in here, for provisions are scarce enough now. We have had nothing for several days but flour & beans & coffee.... We shall not starve as long as we are able to work, for the gold is here.... Beef is worth 37 1/2 cts, butter 1.25, Flour .25, Salt .50, Beans .30. Shugar .40 cts If anybody trys to jump our claims, they will be very likely to get their eyes put out. . . . We have lions, wolves, bears, lizards, scorpions &c.
Bridge Gulch Indian Massacre
In his Jun 3, 1852 letter Worthington delves into Indian relations at some length, describing a horrific massacre of Nor-rel-muk Wintu Native Americans by a large force of vigilantes. Known as the Bridge Gulch Massacre of April 23, 1852, this atrocity resulted in 150 Wintu people being killed by a group of men led by Trinity County Sheriff William H. Dixon:
The Indians, as some others, like good blankets & a bag of flour some. They were bold some time ago that they would enter a cabin & take what they could while the men were at work close by. . . . the miners became enraged & raised a co. of about 40 or 50 & went to their ranch in the night & just at daybreak rushed upon them & killed about 130 & took 2 prisoners, while 5 or 6 only escaped. Since then we have not been troubled in the least, although there are plenty of them in this vicinity, but they are as affraid of white men as they are of lions & tigers. They have never been known to attact one unless he was alone & they some 15 or 20 strong. They are not like the Mass Indians of old, not so strong or brave & far less cunning.
Historian Ben Madley asserts in his recent book An American Genocide, that this widely reported massacre of Wintu Indians led to further institutionalized Indian killing.
On June 3, 1852, he writes that "our great aim is to get the most gold in the shortest time, for none of us care enough about the country to stay in it any longer than is practacable for our present & future happiness."
On October 24, 1852, Worthington describes a disgruntled employee named Robbins who snuck back to work on the claim. A partner "just steps up to him & took a pick away from him & told him to be off & if wanted him to put him out, he would do it mighty easy. Robbins felt for his pistol but did not have it with him & if he had drawn it, he never could have had to shoot, for H would have split his braines out with the pick. Robbins thought it time to leave & did so."
On April 23, 1853, his final California letter, Worthington describes continued hardship on the mining claim: "Jo Hayden, a packer, shot his arm off almost. They . . . started a man up for Dr. Jackson & waited nearly 3 days before he could get there." He also announces a change in circumstances--he has sold off his claim, as "there were several steam mills in Eureka . . . & that they wanted to get a fellow of about my complexion to come down & take a job."
Almost all of the letters are accompanied by their original envelopes. While none bear postage stamps, seven of the letters have envelopes with inked Sacramento postmarks and inked "10" postal franking; the Colusa letter has a manuscript "20" for postage; and the 10 Big Bar-area envelopes have an inked manuscript "10" in the upper right corner for postage.
The California letters are accompanied by numerous other family letters providing some valuable context and background on Worthington's life and family.
For example, an interesting [4]-page letter from Dr. Henry W. Jackson (who is referenced in other letters) to Ralph Worthington, proposes an overland expedition to California. This letter is written from New Orleans, May 25, 1850:
I now propose giving you a brief sketch relative to the expedition, I now am engaged in... The Ship Georgia sailed at the appointed hour from New York. There was a dence mass of us on board, you better believe...imposed on the California ? not the strongest fellowes fallen in with Capt. French, who has been in N.Y. some 2 or 3 months interesting a company for the overland route. His conditions were these 6 very one who joined his company paid one hundred dollars to him to find the contract. They engage to work for him six months commencing from the time they leave New York. He furnishes everything that may be needful for the journey. Arms, ammunitions, &c. &c. At the expiration of six months they receive one hundred & fifty dollars as their wages... Tomorrow we set sail for ... about five days trip. Then we take passage in covered wagons set on Eliplic springs and proceed directly to El Paso from there to the Gila. One work more, or I know you would knit your brow and say, why [not] go the steamboat route for it is quicker way of gaining the winds. The steamer that was to meet us on the other side can not reach Panama in short of forty days from this date.... consequently we arrive at the gold mines 20 or 30 days sooner than if we went the Panama route.
There are also 18 letters by Worthington dated 1853-1858 from his new home in Grand Rapids / Centralia in central Wisconsin near Stevens Point, where he remained for the rest of his life. Also, more than 200 other letters addressed by various parties to William R. Ford and family members, most from various points in Massachusetts and New York, circa 1831-1858, still in envelopes or folded letters with postal franking.
Rarity
While individual California Gold Rush letters appear with some frequency in the market, it is rare indeed to find such a fine cache of content-rich letters by a keen-eyed gold seeker such as Worthington. These letters are unpublished. We can find no holdings of his manuscript material in OCLC.