On January 29th, 1851, George Murrell wrote from Long Bar on the American River:

My Provision speculation this winter did not come up to my expectation. And I had to be very industrious with my mules to save myself. I still have about 700 lbs. of flour on hand & that article has depreciated up here some $10.00 on the hundred.

I will soon get clear of it all however, for I have up a Bake oven & Reub has learned to be a very good Baker. I can sell the bread when I cant sell the flour as the miners here dont love to cooke.

Looks like once again George has overestimated his ability to earn and Reuben is the one bringing in the money.

Two weeks later George began a new venture, after relocating to Greenwood.

I have opened a boarding house on Long Bar on my own hook. Reub is cook. I have 10 boarders to start with at an ounce a week, and think it will not be long untill a No [number] of others will board with me. I am also carrying on mineing. I work like a white hand myself & have two hands hired at $4.00 per day & I board them. My claim is paying me from $6.00 to $10.00 per day to the hand.

This might be a good going concern, until . .

On April 13th, 1851 George writes that “Reub is well & wishes to come home next fall, money or no money,” but soon disaster struck. A month went by and on May 21st he wrote:

I have not recovered Reuben’s body yet & entertain but little hope of doing so.

Somewhere between the two dates Reuben drowned in the American River and we can only surmise that George reported this in a previous letter. The footnote to this letter says:

One day George Murrell, Reuben, and Henry Augustus Perkins were carried away by the strong current of the Middle Fork of the American River. George Murrell survived, but the two other men drowned. [p.222]

Mr. Perkins left behind a wife and two small children in Salem, Massachusetts. Reuben too had a family: parents, siblings, perhaps a wife, but we know nothing of them.

Reuben’s body was recovered a few days later, while George was gone packing provisions to another camp. “When I got back home I learned that in my absence my friends had found the body of Reuben about 1 mile below here, taken him out & given him a decent burial.”

George Murrell would return to Kentucky in 1854, but Reuben stayed forever in California, buried near the American River, his golden dreams of home and freedom earned, unfulfilled.