Sacramento citty / October 4th, 1849

Master Sam– I take the pains to write you a few lines & wish to hear you are well & doing well. There is no time for dogeing [dodging] now. We expect to go to work in a few days & make something & get back as soon as we possibly can for I dont think this country is near as good as Old Ky. We are here now, and it is, root little hog or die. —Rheubin Murrell [dictated to George Murrell]

George and Reuben were still in Sacramento eleven days later. They were delayed in going to the mines, first by the sickness of George’s partner, Mr. Hackley, and then by the illness of George himself. But “Rheubin is in fine health & employed in the boarding house that I am at. He more than pays my board though that is $4 a day.” George was lucky to have Reuben to support him.

Winter was approaching and the season for mining was over by the time they got to Georgetown. George wrote:

This winter, oweing to the inclemency of the season, I spend my time in reading & writeing. Rheubin is engaged in washing clothes when the weather is fair enough to dry them. He gets $6.00 per dozen. But they are so dirty & soap is so high (It being $1.00 per pound) that he cant make a great deal at it.

I think you can see a pattern appearing here. In April he wrote:

I now have on hand about $20.00 in cash, 4 months provisions, a complete set of mining implements for two persons worth about $80.00. And Rheubin set in as a cook for an eating house this morning for $10.00 a day just as long as I am willing to let him stay.

So George is all ready to go mining, but Reuben is the one who is actually working and earning money. Black cooks were in demand and it was typical of slaveowners to hire out an enslaved person as a cook. George does some prospecting and finds a claim he likes on the “South Branch of the North Fork of the American river’ but the water is too high to work the stream. It won’t be until late July that they can get to mining. In the meantime, Reuben is still working as a cook and has learned to make “spruce beer”, which George drinks instead of milk.

By mid-July George and Reuben are both working the claim and making a few dollars a day, but not the fortune they anticipated. In August they moved on to “Long Bar, Middle Fork of the American River,” where Reuben “has been here two weeks & made about $100 clear” probably as a cook, and George has hopes of averaging $8.00 a day at mining. That would be a half ounce of gold a day. A week later he writes:

I have Rheube hired out at $10.00 a day. And foolish I was that I did not have him hired all the time, I might have been a great deal better off. $10.00 a day is big wages & but few hands can get it now. Although at one time it was considered low & but few men could be employed at it. At present some of the new comes willingly work for their board & seem glad to get that.

Reuben is making a steady $10 a day, while George is at best finding $8 a day, and likely less. Several times George invested what money he had in mining schemes, but these rarely paid off. He tried packing goods to the mines, but met with more reverses. To his friend Sandy Gossum, but not to his parents, he wrote:

I have lost within the last 3 weeks some $800.00, independent of some two thousand or upwards during last spring & summer. When writeing home, I seldom ever speak about these things, for it would only tend to create an anxiety among my friends . . .

My last losses arose from the following causes. One man oweing me $400 for provisions left for parts unknown with a pocket full of money. All who knew him deemed him honest. Some rascals stole a couple of my best mules worth $300. and another scamp stole one hundred dollars out of my purse.

Clearly, George Murrell is not a man cut out for business, while Reuben is a hard worker who is supporting them both. It was not an unusual situation in Gold Rush California.