The Age of Gold (31 page)

The high price of services was mirrored by the high price of goods. One of the most salient aspects of mining camp life, and the one that provoked the most consistent complaints from the miners, was the exorbitant cost of food and other essentials of life. Tom Archer, reflecting on his experiences in a camp near the Mariposa, explained, “The price of provisions had become so high that our paltry earnings were not nearly sufficient to pay for the food we required to keep us alive. Flour was $1 a
lb., pork the same, Chilian jerky (dried beef) half a dollar to 75 cents, tea $5, coffee $3, frijoles (dried beans) about half a dollar, and everything else in the same proportion.” Archer and a partner worked for three months, spent every dollar they made in the diggings on bare necessities, and still found themselves $500 in debt. (Camp merchants didn’t usually operate on credit, but the one Archer patronized knew his brother and felt obliged to give Tom a hand.)

The high prices in the camps reflected the high cost of transporting goods there; they also reflected the ability of merchants to exploit the shortages created by the huge influx of customers. Vicente Pérez Rosales, traveling via New Helvetia en route to the mines, noted the success of the man who got the rush going. Near the fort, Pérez explained, was “a large store with a huge sign that read ‘Brannan and Company.’” The proprietor was “the possessor of one of the securest fortunes in California at that period,” for he had what everyone needed, and charged what the traffic would bear. “The store, situated right on the road to the placers, was admirably supplied with all that could be desired for the tasks incidental to mining. I say nothing about prices, since they gave the retailer only the infinitesimal profit of five hundred or a thousand per cent or so.” (Brannan’s success naturally elicited envy in those required to pay the prices he demanded. Pérez couldn’t resist relating the conventional wisdom about Brannan’s flagging Mormonism: “It seems that he had no sooner won his wealth than he discarded his religion without replacing it by another, although gossip had it that in order to hush his conscience he frequently said prayers to Saint Polygamy.”)

The high prices aggravated the health problems of the miners, who might have eaten something besides beans and bacon, salt pork and jerky, biscuits and hardtack had the prices been lower. The miners’ health was further eroded by the lack of adequate shelter. At least until the first winter, miners typically camped in canvas tents or brush lean-tos. (Pérez Rosales and his Chilean partners slung serapes over branches.) Although such accommodations sufficed, more or less, during the dry season, the autumn rains invariably caught many miners out. Before they could arrange something more substantial, they got cold and wet and often sick. Their indoor
options were sharply circumscribed by what they could afford, which often was nothing better than a spot on the floor of one of the hotels that sprang up in each camp.

Yet camp life wasn’t without its pleasures. Foremost, of course, was the thrill of a rich strike. Every miner heard of fellows finding placers that paid fabulously—the pair on Weber Creek who collected $17,000 in dust and nuggets in seven days; the six miners (working with fifty Indians) who gathered 273
pounds
of gold on the Feather River; the Irishman who took $26,000 out of Sullivan Bar. It was in the nature of such stories that they almost always happened last month or over the next ridge, but they remained sufficiently credible as to keep the miners at their labors, and to keep them hoping that such good fortune might befall them.

Gambling of other sorts took place in the camps on a more institutionalized basis. Saloons appeared as quickly as the miners, and despite the high cost of living, miners could always find a dollar or two, or ten or a hundred, for booze and cards. Monte and faro were the indoor games of choice, but miners would wager on just about anything: horse races, cockfights, dogfights, bear fights, bear-and-bull fights. Humans fought frequently in the camps, especially after an evening in the saloons; occasionally they wrestled and boxed for the entertainment of paying—and betting—customers. In time, most of the diversions and vices of the outside world found their way to the camps: vaudeville, stage plays, concerts, opera, prostitution. Pretty nearly whatever a man wanted, and could pay for, he could get.

W
HAT WOMEN WANTED
, and could get, was another matter. Especially in the early days of the Gold Rush, there weren’t enough women in the mining camps to have much effect on life there. Those who did find themselves in the camps, like Sarah Royce, had to struggle to create a space in an overwhelmingly male world.

Sarah settled at Weaverville about the same time Hugh Heiskell did. Josiah briefly attempted mining, but amid the crowd in the diggings he had little luck. He decided instead to try his hand as a merchant, having had some experience in the retail trade back east. Taking the last of his and
Sarah’s money from the overland journey, he headed down to Sam Bran- nan’s store to purchase supplies.

In his absence Sarah began to establish a home. Her standards—at least at first—were higher than those of her neighbors. Instead of a tent or lean-to, she wanted a house, with walls and doors. Instead of dinner cooked over a fire and eaten on stumps, she wanted a kitchen with table and chairs. Sketching out her design, she sought to engage some men to build it. But no one would work for her. “All were so absorbed in washing out gold, or hunting for some to wash, that they could not think of doing anything else,” she wrote. She had to settle for a large tent, divided into two rooms: the rear one for living, the front one for the store Josiah opened with a few partners on his return from Sacramento.

Sarah spent her days in the store, with Mary underfoot or venturing cautiously outside. The experience put Sarah into contact with the full diversity of mining camp life. Several of her neighbor-customers were men of intelligence and education. One was a doctor, another a lawyer, another a scientist. There were merchants, mechanics, farmers, teachers. Each had come to test his luck at mining, driven by a dream of a better life than he could find at home. Often they were touched by the sight of Sarah and Mary, and stole moments on their way to and from the diggings just to watch. “Excuse me, madam,” said one, passing the Royce tent one day. “May I speak to the little girl? We see so few ladies and children in California, and she is about the size of a little sister I left at home.”

With such folk as these, Sarah might have come into contact back east. “But, mingled with these better sort of men who formed the majority, were others of a different class,” she explained.