Among the many digital collections at the Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley) is one called “Gold Rush Materials.” It contains letters written by the men and women who came to California seeking their fortunes. Two of the letters mention Bidwell’s Bar and here is one of them, written by William H. Seymour to his friend Garret Cunningham of Moorefield, Hardy County, Virginia (now West Virginia). Mr. Seymour’s letter is short on punctuation, so I have added some, but I have kept his spelling. I have italicized the words he underlined.
High Rock Feb 15 / 52
Dear Garret
Today is 9 weeks since wrote to John & on taking it to the office found your letter written at the Red Sulpor. It is rather too long a space to elapse between writes but I have been hard at work harder than I ever worked before or expect to again. I wrote John that I had just become interested in the High Rock claim & will now give you some more particulars. It is four miles below Bidwells on the main Feather.
Our race will be 240 yards long 30 feet wide in the bottom requiring an average cut of about 10 feet in depth & all though solid rock. A large portion of the rock is extremely hard we have completed about 30 yards the same amount of labor will complete the next 80 or 90 yards, the rock not being so difficult to work.
When completed it will be one of the best jobs in Cal. There is a quartz vein that our race cuts through which is of particular kind that has been found to pay best here. When we get up to the vein we will have it well tested and if it proves well we can erect machinery to run by water power at a saving in the start of 75 per cent & for running the mill of 50 per cent over the steam mills which are almost the only power used here (water power near and accessible for teams) being very rare.
There are 18 shares in our Co. each share furnishes one hand some talk lately of putting two hands to the share.
I have a claim 15 miles above here that if I had the means to carry on I would not take $5000 for which I will have to forfeit. There are a variety of opinions as to when we will get our work completed here so as to get in to the river some think by August next other are scattered along a year after that time.
The bulk of the mining done here in future will be by turning the rivers & by quartz grinding. There has been but little rain yet this winter consequently gulch digging would not pay well. The weather for the last three weeks has been about like your finest May weather. The Buckeye bushes have sprouted out several inches already, many flowers in bloom, tho you might find flowers at any season, spring frogs do not I believe go into winter quarters, tho snakes do. The web-footed tribe are winging their way to their northern summer home among the mountain lakes.
My Post office now is Bidwells bar, Butte Co. Cal & I suppose will be until I leave this state. When that event will happen I do not know. Let those who you think will write know my P.O. One of my mess has just returned from Bidwells brought me the Hardy Whig of Dec. 12 but little in it except the Presidents message on which (like Mr. Baker) “I do not feel disposed to comment at present.” I should like to have had that big hog (that I see noticed) here I could almost have made my pile off of him. We have no hogs here so large but on a pinch we might double that in the way of bear.
You have doubtless heard of the band of robbers who committed such wholesale & fiendish murders in our neighbourhood. At the time the two first men were killed I could not have been farther than a mile from the spot alone unarmed and on foot. It is not known how many were killed by that party, probably 20. Three men were found last week 20 miles above there with their throats cut & arrows stuck all over them. This is charged (probably falsely) to the Indians.
Will you have the Whig directed to Bidwells. Ward is still on hand but I fear is getting too many irons in the fire. Davis was at Shasta flats when last heard from. Suppose he will be down as soon as the snow disappear. I have no envelopes so must close.
Yours as of yoar, Wm. H. Seymour
Comments:
During the 19th century the Red Sulphur Springs in (West) Virginia was a popular hot springs resort.
Maybe someone who knows about mining claims on the Feather River can identify where the Hard Rock claim (“four miles below Bidwells”) or his other claim (“15 miles above here”) would have been.
The Hardy Whig newspaper existed in Moorefield, Virginia from 1851 to sometime in the 1860s. The editor was James H. Baker, presumably the Mr. Baker who liked to say “I do not feel disposed to comment at present.”
Saymour’s story about the band of robbers may refer to this incident, reported in the Sacramento Daily Union on November 13, 1851.
