Heading: (California Gold Rush)
Author: Boughton, James
Title: Letter about New York 49ers in California
Place Published: New York
Publisher:
Date Published: January 15, 1850
Description: Autograph Letter Signed, 3pp.+ stampless address leaf. To his brother Dr. Edward H. Boughton, Cayuga County, New York.Boughton writes his brother about what he has heard about the California Gold Rush giving detailed pricing of provisions. He added that those who got rich did so by gambling.“...I have heard tonight again from a young man who went to California in a vessel in which I at one time contemplated going in, he writes he is enjoying good health and when at work at the mines he made from $2 to $20 per day and now that the mining season is over, mercantile pursuits is good in Sacramento City as that is where he is located, the price he gives of sundry articles of provisions...Potatoes 35 cents per pound, cheese 12...Dried apples 6/lb. and other articles in proportion I infer excepting such articles as are produced there or near which some are even lower in price than in this market, numbers of our acquaintances have returned from California but I have not known of any who have got very extensively rich. I believe as far as I can learn, those who have gone out there and got immensely rich in a short time have made it by gambling almost entirely as there is an immense business of that kind carried on there. I presume the most of any place in the world...“

Some tears and small holes at folds, with no significant loss of text.