Mary Ballou's View of the Gold Rush—Historic Letter

We can learn how people lived and thought in the past by reading historic letters. Such letters sometimes provide historians with information that is very difficult to find anywhere else. The letter below was written by Mary Ballou to her son, Selden. In it, she provides many interesting details about what it was like to live and work in a mining camp in California.

Primary Source

We are about as usual in health. Well I suppose you would like to know what I am doing in this gold region. Well I will try to tell you what my work is here in this muddy Place. All the kitchen that I have is four posts stuck down into the ground and covered over the top with factory cloth no floor but the ground. This is a Boarding House kitchen. There is a floor in the dining room and my sleeping room covered with nothing but cloth. We are at work in a Boarding House.

Now I will try to tell you what my work is in this Boarding House. Well sometimes I am washing and Ironing sometimes I am making mince pie and Apple pie and squash pies. Sometimes frying mince turnovers and Donuts… Three times a day I set my Table which is about thirty feet in length… Sometimes I am feeding my chickens and then again I am scareing the Hogs out of my kitchen and Driving the mules out of my Dining room. You can see by the description of that I have given you of my kitchen that anything can walk into the kitchen that choeses to walk in and there being no door to shut from the kitchen into the Dining room you see that anything can walk into the kitchen and then from kitchen into the Dining room so you see the Hogs and mules can walk in any time day or night if they choose to do so. Sometimes I am up all times a night scaring the Hogs and mules out of the House… Sometimes I am taking care of Babies and nursing at the rate of Fifty Dollars a week but I would not advise any Lady to come out here and suffer the toil and fatigue that I have suffered for the sake of a little gold neither do I advise any one to come…

I immagine you will say what a long yarn this is from California. If you can read it at all. I must close soon for I am so tired and almost sick. Oh my Dear Selden I am so Home sick. I will say to you once more to see that Augustus has every thing that he kneeds to make him comfortable and by all means have him Dressed warm this cold winter. I worry a great deal about my Dear children. It seems as though my heart would break when I realise how far I am from my Dear Loved ones. This is from your affectionate mother,

Background

During the Gold Rush, over 80,000 people went to California hoping to find gold. In the 1850s, it was common for women to work in mining towns. Mary B. Ballou is one woman who accompanied her husband to California and worked at a mining camp. There, she worked as a cook in a boarding house. From taking care of children to washing sheets, Ballou had many responsibilities. Despite the good income that she earned, Ballou missed being at home in the East with her children.