Hardships

Mining was the most speculative activity of the gold rush. Searching for gold could bring great wealth or nothing at all. When fortune turned against the miners many took any work they found and some eventually turned their other employment into lucrative careers. In one of his longer letters, written to his sister Helen from Indian Creek in northern California, Skelton writes of the hardships of life in the gold fields. Along with his companions, including a pair from Vermont, he notes (top) that “we have been to great expence in getting to work and have mined but little since I wrote before. I do not know but think the claim will pay us well for our labor.” Although the natives in his vicinity were “very friendly and we fear nothing from them,” (bottom) it was not the same nearby, for “the Indians have been very hostile in other sections of the country and last fall the white men were all driven away but have returned again in superior numbers.” Later, Skelton would write of the difficulties associated in maintaining a viable claim and of making bricks when mining did not provide enough funds. The discolorations seen in this letter come from samples of flowers Skelton had included.