1849, California.
The Gold Rush had begun.
300,000 gold-seekers left their homes, grabbed what they could and headed West to find their fortune.
This is the diary of one of those intrepid men, and the trials and tribulations that he faces in his search for riches.
From May 1850 through to June 1852 the life of Alfred T. Jackson, one of the forty-niners, was compiled by Chauncey Canfield.
Jackson’s dream was that “I would like to have enough capital so that I would not have to slave from sunrise till dark as I did on dad's farm.”
But like many others who moved out west to find gold it was not easy …
He lived a truly wild existence during his time in the west, sleeping rough, panning for gold and fleeing from gunfights with his dog and his best friend.
First-hand accounts of early settlements like Nevada City and Rock Creek are given as well as descriptions of Grass Valley, the Sierra Mountains and the North and South Yuba Valleys.
It is a rich and vivid depiction of gold mining with accounts of pioneer travelling overland, the infiltration of foreign workers, particularly Chinese miners, and contains many details of how forty-niners like Jackson entertained themselves with the nuggets that they found and spent.
First published in 1906, this classic work provides a thorough insight into the real wild west and the life of the forty-niners.
Chauncey Canfield (1843-1909) first published The diary of a forty-niner in 1906.
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