PBA Galleries

Long, detailed letter in a neat, close hand, touching on a variety of subjects, with much on California Indians and the Chinese in California. Having spent the winter in the foothills, "We started up in the Mountains the 3rd of March and went up about one hundred and thirty or forty miles on Feather River on the North fork at Ritch Bar we went over snow from 6 to 18 feet deep it were on the tops of the mountains and in the ravines so that we could not do much at prospecting so we turned back and I went back to my trade...shoeing is $20 a span..." Later, "I went up to the Indian camps about a mile from here (on Sunday) as there was nothing on...but carrying on and a meeting of miners to make laws for their own benefit... The squaws (or mohalies as the Indians call them) was cooking...acorns... They shuck them and dry them then the mohalies dig a little place in the ground put the acorns in and pound them all fine as meal with a stone then take it out and make another hole in the ground of soft dirt and put the meal into it and pour warm water on it and stir it round into a paste then let it stand till the water soaks mostly out of it then take their hand and scoop it out into a water tight basket..." with more on the acorns, burial customs, marriage, etc. And then, "There is a lot of China men here on the bar, they are very small in stature, the heaviest of them won't go over one hundred and twenty pounds. They shave their heads all but a long braid that hangs down to their knees some of them..." Accompanied by a one-page letter written two days later from Jones to his wife, evidently sent at the same time, discussing difficulties of mailing letters, healthiness of the mountains as opposed to the cities, etc.