El Dorado Co. (Calif.) Gold Rush Papers, 1852-1865

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Summary

Title:
El Dorado County Gold Rush Papers,
Dates:
1852-1865
Creators:
Language:
English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], El Dorado County Gold Rush Papers, Mss53, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Background

Scope and content:

The collection contains two Placerville items. Both are letters relating to Post Office business (1852; 1858). The collection contains a Diamond Springs letter from Joseph S. Bradley acknowledging receipt of a water company transcript from the Secretary of State (1853). Other items in this collection are a deed to land on the "Smith Tolbert Road" (1865) and a notice of continuance in the case of A. Howells vs. A. Sands (1852). The latter document mentions attorney, A.J. Buckner, and is signed by County Clerk, Josiah Gordon.

List of names mentioned in documents Bradley, Joseph S............................... Buckner, A.J...................................... Conze, D............................................ Gordon, Josiah...................................1850 census, age 24 FL Howell, A. (possibly "Abel")..............1850 census, age 25 OH Jacobs, Rudolph ................................ Nugent, Thomas C.............................1850 census, age 28 IN Small ms. collection, Cal State Lib. Sands, A............................................ Spence, A.H.......................................Postmaster (1859) SF Herald (2-21-59); d. 11-25-90 According to Cal State Lib. Biogr. File

Biographical / historical:

El Dorado County, California, one of the original 27 counties and third most populous after San Francisco and Sacramento during the Gold Rush, was the site of James Marshall's original gold discovery (Coloma, 1847). By the following year the area faced a massive influx of gold seekers, notably along the American and Cosumnes Rivers. The largest communities in El Dorado County were Coloma (county seat from 1850 to 1857), Placerville (county seat from 1857), Georgetown and Diamond Springs.

Gold was discovered early in Placerville (1848) and the area proved to be one of the richest in the Mother Lode. This was always one of the largest towns in the Sierra, having a population of over 6,000 throughout the Gold Rush period. Among its illustrious citizens, one should mention J.M. Studebaker, blacksmith, who went on to become an early automobile tycoon, and Philip D. Armour, butcher (1852-1856), who became a noted Chicago meat packer.

Diamond Springs, three miles south of Placerville, had about 3,000 residents, several stamp mills and a post office in 1853. It too was a rich site and hydraulic mining continued there into the 20th century.

Physical location:
For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Physical description:
0.125 linear ft.

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Processed by Don Walker; machine-readable finding aid created by Don Walker
Date Prepared:
© 1998
Date Encoded:
Machine-readable finding aid derived from paper by means of scanning and OCR; OCR file edited for typographical errors before encoding. Date of source: September 1996.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], El Dorado County Gold Rush Papers, Mss53, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Location of this collection:
University of the Pacific, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University Library
Stockton, CA 95211, US
Contact:
(209) 946-2404
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