goldfields

Painting of Bidwell’s Bar around 1854, painting attributed to Henry Rust Mighels. California State Library.

After Edward McIlhany got back to camp at Bidwell’s Bar at the end of that rainy November in 1849, he came down with a case of scurvy.

The doctor said it was caused from eating so much salt bacon on the Plains and getting wet that brought the disease out on me.

A diet consisting primarily of salt bacon, along with beans and biscuit, certainly would conduce to a case of scurvy. Doctors didn’t know that scurvy was caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, but they did know that a diet lacking in fruits and vegetables could bring it on.

McIlhany spent the winter months lying weakly in his tent. His companions “were making money all the time” digging gold, and they shared with Ed just as if he were working. The doctor, who charged an ounce of gold ($16) per visit, advised him to eat provisions such as “stewed dried apples, pickles, and acids” but the boys had run out of those commodities.

One pretty morning I felt better, got a stick, and I walked down the bank of the river not far from where all the stores were, and went to a stand kept by an old woman. I asked her if she had any dried apples to sell. She said no. She put her dried apples into pies to sell. I asked her the price of her pies and she told me two dollars. I stood there and ate the apples out and threw the crust away.

I then walked down to another store and looked up on the shelves and saw some bottles of pickles. They looked good so I selected a small bottle of cucumbers. They handed me the bottle. I examined it, asked them the price, they said $8.00. It was a half pint [one cup]. The pie and the half pint of pickles cost me $10.00. I returned to camp and when the boys came in from work I told them of my experience in going down to the store. They were delighted to see me out and were amused at my experience of buying fruit and pickles.

Ed McIlhany does not say any more about the scurvy or his recovery, but if he and his friends were smart, they would have gone looking for miner’s lettuce to add to their diet in the spring. It is an early and delicious green, something like spinach in texture. It certainly must have been a welcome addition to the miners’ limited diet.

Continuing the story of Edward McIlhany in the goldfields of Northern California:

We left the Major’s and in a few days reached Shasta, not too far from what was called the great Shasta Peak. The place was quite small and the mines were not very rich, so we did not remain long, as outlook for making money was poor. . . . We decided to return and camped at the Major’s ranch, where we told him that we were not satisfied at Shasta and had determined to go to his rich bar that he discovered.

We finally struck the Feather River seventeen miles below the bar. We forded the river where afterwards very rich mines were discovered, now called Oroville. Going up the east bank of the river we finally reached the bar and made camp on the hillside, about 200 yards from the river. There were quite a number camped there, mining, mostly using rockers and washing the gold dust out with pans. The diggings were very rich and there were new pockets and discoveries of gold up and down the river for several miles. We located our mining claims and finding the mines were rich, decided to locate for the winter. By that time it was getting late in the fall.

They set up camp and were soon taking out about $150 a day in gold. Things were looking good. But prices were high at Bidwell’s Bar and the group decided to send McIlhany down to Marysville to stock up on supplies for the winter. In Marysville they filled their wagon with all the mules could pull and started back to Bidwell’s Bar.

Only fifteen miles from their camp it began to rain, and it rained every day for a solid month while they waited, sopping wet, in their tent. When at last the skies cleared they hitched up the mules and after “a few days of very hard and tiresome work” (to go only fifteen miles) they reached camp, where their friends were still taking out $150 in gold a day.

Next time: Scurvy!

(I am indebted to Scott Lawson for his fine editing of Edward W. McIlhany’s story. Recollections of a ’49er: a quaint and thrilling narrative of a trip across the Plains and life in the California gold fields during the stirring days following the discovery of gold in the Far West, edited and annotated by Scott Lawson (2006) is available at the Plumas County Museum, or at your public library.)