Letter from Tyler Davis Heiskell to his father

TYLER D. HEISKELL

Sacramento, California
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Tyler Davis Heiskell was the maternal great grandfather of Jack Griffin Desmond.
Tyler Heiskell was born in 1823, and on April 16, 1849, at the age of 26, he departed
from Knoxville, Tennessee, bound for the Territory of California. On this journey he
was accompanied by a brother-in-law, Colonel James W. Bicknell, his first cousin,
Hugh Brown Heiskell, and six other gentlemen from Monroe County, Tennessee.
The letter on display here was written to his father, William Heiskell, at a date
after November 7, 1849 and prior to November 22, 1849.
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Dear Father:

I am at last able to inform you of our arrival in California after a long, laborious, tedious, and tiresome journey, and all in good health, and without any loss of property. Col. Bicknell, Brown, Humphreys and myself are now in this city of a day, and Oliver and Dick White, Nelson Cannon, Hugh Heiskell, and Mr. Howard, are at this time on Weaver’s Creek, near Weaversville, sixty miles east of this place. Our effects that we brought over are there, and we came down here to buy and haul up our winter provisions. It has been two weeks since we left them, but I received a note from Hugh a few days since, saying they were all well except Nelson, and he was improving or nearly well; he was a little sick when we left there. They think the prospect for making money is as good as any could wish.

We got to the first mines the 24th October, six months and eight days from the time we left home, and five months and one day from the time we left St. Joseph, Mo. I will not be able to give you a very satisfactory letter for want of time, talent, and a fire to write it by, but I could write a week and not tell half the prospect for making money. It is as great as the most loving of the “filthy lucre” could wish. I cannot say what I can make mining, for we have done nothing since we got through, and no man knows what he can average, but some make a hundred and fifty dollars per day for months, and others only sixteen. Any person will tell you that he can make one ounce any where. That the article is superabundant, I will prove by giving you a few of “the prices current,” not quoted, but what I have seen and bought at–viz: Flour $32 per barrel– mess of pickled pork about $60 per barrel of 200 lbs.; Fresh Beef 25 cents per pound; Salt Beef $20 per bbl. of 200 lbs.; Coffee 30 cts. per lb. by the Sack; Sugar, best article, 28 cts. by the bbl.; Onions $1 per lb.; Potatoes $1 per lb.; Apples $1.25 per doz.; Peaches $2 per lb.; a very small green cabbage head $4 each; Fish of the best kind, 50 cts. per lb.; Butter $1.50 per lb. by the hundred lbs.; Plank is worth $500 per thousand feet.

I find one College mate here, R.A. Paris of Tazewell county, Va., building a house of the plank, hewn from red wood (arbor vitae,) a plank six feet long, and six inches wide, which cost him 90 cts. each plank; Shingles $50 per thousand, and such as you not let Riley put on a pig pen. Hauling $12 per hundred, for from 20 to 45 miles and over that to 60 miles $15. These are a few of the prices in this city of tents, and the prices doubled after being hauled 20 miles or more.

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As to exhausting the gold in the mines, I think it will not be done in twenty years. It is found South of this place, 180 miles on the Sacramento, about the same distance North, and on every intermediate stream, and on almost every dry ravine. In traveling from Weavertown to this place, in nearly every hollow, I found persons mining, and the ravines have been dug up. Nearly every oak afforded a company of miners a house, thousands have no other house but the oak, and their blankets, and in this country up to this time they render a man comfortable, but now the rainy season has set in, they will have to leave these diggins [sic]; i.e. those in the wet diggins will have to leave, and come to the dry.

This city is on the Sacramento, 140 miles above San Francisco, and six months ago there was not a house here, and now the population is estimated at ten thousand. Most of the houses are canvass, many tents, no good building. The best in the city is the City Hotel, which cost one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and it could be put up in Madisonville for three thousand dollars, and that is extravagant.

This place supplies all the miners North of this, half of the mining districts. The river is navigable for large Steam Ships up to this place, and there are now lying at the levee fifty or sixty Crafts, of all kinds, Sloops, Schooners, &c., yet it is in the woods and will soon be in the water. My old College mate, Dr. R. A. Paine, got here in September last, and has made nine or ten thousand dollars, buying and selling Town Property, Physician, and Druggist. He pays his clerk $300 per month.

And I also met long John M. Barnes, formerly from Blount County, Tennessee, who now lives in Oregon. He got to the mines, or commenced mining the 4th August last, and to the last of October, dug twenty-five hundred dollars. I saw the gold, no mistake about his “dust.” He was the happiest man I ever saw, in his gold, and meeting us, but his gold most.-- He could hardly contain himself; “a soul redeemed from a load of guilt” at a Camp Meeting never cut as many extras as did he. He says that he was extremely poor when he left home, and has gone back to make his family comfortable; for his friends will say, that his children are all alive and well. He let his wheat crop fall and rot, and most of the Oregon people did the same. The young Keans live near him and doing well, one of them came to California with him, but was sick and made nothing. Frank Smith is at Weaverville, I see his name on a ticket to represent that district in the first California legislature, which takes place on the 16th inst. Old Capt. Sutter, long a resident of California, the owner of this land, is a candidate for Governor, opposed by Winfield Scott Sherwood. I know nothing about the probable success of either.

The convention assembled, some time since, and formed a Constitution, which is submitted to the people at the coming election, for adoption or rejection. I know but one clause and that is, that Slavery or involuntary servitude, shall not exist in California. This State has no use for a Congress to decide that question, for that will be the law of the land, whenever the State is fully organised, if left to the people to decide. Every man who in the States was entitled to vote, can vote here, and some of the natives, but I do not know the qualifications for a native. This is a bad place to get information of any kind; no newspapers, nor will any person talk to you unless you give him $1 per hour. Time is money. I have seen but one newspaper since I got to the place, the N. York Herald, Septembr 4th, from which I suppose Trousdale is elected Governor of

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Tennessee, and some person told me Crozier was beaten for Congress by a Whig–Col. Jo. Anderson.

I hope we will have the general result, and letters from home, on Col. Bicknell’s return, who is now in San Francisco.

Capt. Sutter is a fine looking, honest Dutchman, liberal and kind, good hard sense, and is now here electioneering, like a Tennessee Sheriff whose time has expired, but a candidate for re-election. He says “that he has governed Indians, Spaniards and white men, and if they will elect him Governor they will say old Jno. A. Sutter is a pretty good Governor.” There is some sickness here, and it would be impossible to be otherwise, people living out of doors, under trees and in tents. We will go back to where we left the “boys,” build us a cabin, and live comfortable during the Winter or wet season. Wood is worth from sixteen to twenty dollars per cord, pine plank, (very scarce) 25 cents per pound. You pay for every thing here. If you look a man rather strait, he charges you a dollar, and I have not been so extravagant as to look at a “gal,” yet in this place. Where there are supposed to be ten thousand souls, there are not more than fifty women. This is a fine market for them, and if the lady from New York would come with her ship load I vouch for her a fortune.– I paid 50 cts. for the privilege of grinding two axes, hold myself and furnish the turner.–No person considers the prices high here, and indeed they are not, considering the price of labor. An ox driver gets $10 per day, and a mechanic from sixteen to twenty. Gambling is carried to a greater extent than any place I ever heard of before–no public house but what is filled with gaming tables. They cannot be avoided by any person who wishes to do so, and with them a bar, but for all this, there was never better order in any village of the States. I have been here a week and a half and have not seen three drunken men. You are treated like a gentleman, you hear no hallooing in the town nor around it, several churches well attended, still there is no Sabbath here, work and gaiming [sic] the same every day. The owners of slaves have no difficulty in retaining and receiving their services. There is a fortune here for every man in California–There is one for me and if I keep my health I will make it, and not be always about it either, and come home. I wish some of the other friends were here, and if any of them do come, or any person, I can give them some information, that would do them good service–Do not cross the plains, ‘tis too long, tedious and toilsome a trip, but if they do cross, use pack mules, for if they start with a wagon, they will in all probability lose their teams. We left St. Josephs, Mo., a company of twelve wagons. We got to the sink of Mary’s river, 1800 miles from St. Josephs, with 10 wagons, the teams very weak. From Mary’s to Carson’s [sic] river, a distance of 39 miles, there is not a vestige of vegetation seen nor a drop of water, but a few salt wells dug by the emigrants, and the water not fit to use. After letting our cattle rest for a day, cutting and curing grass, our casks filled with water, we took the desert, and but five wagons got through. Mr. Campbell’s (a brother of Jas. W. of Knoxville,) mess lost five oxen, their wagon, their clothing and provisions, but what they could pack on their backs and one steer. A second mess well provided with every thing, and a Doctor with a fine stock of medicines, lost five head of cattle, their wagon, much fine and laborers clothing, got through with an ox and cow packed and what they had on their backs.–A third mess lost four oxen, out of eight, a wagon and a first rate outfit, getting what they could pack on four broken down oxen. A fourth mess lost three oxen out of six, and abandoned their outfit. A fifth, abandoned all but what they could pull in a cart with two poor steers. The sixth mess got a cart through, abandoning half their outfit. Three others got

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through, with great difficulty.–The other team was mules. The sand was 10 or 12 inches deep and that played the duce with our teams. We (Monroe boys,) doubled our teams at the sand, took one wagon through, rested a day, and brought the other very easy. Nor was the desert more disastrious [sic] to ours than to companies preceeding [sic] us. The last twenty-eight of the thirty-nine miles was one continued scene of destruction of property, horses, mules, oxen, wagons, provisions of all kinds, fine and common clothing, and every thing that man could think of for his comfort or use. The last fifteen miles would average a wagon for every two hundred yards, nor were we out of the stench of dead animals one step. A wagon load of bacon was left with the name of the owner, and his card telling all to help themselves. In another place about 1000 pounds of flour with the same card. These were the largest lost left, but thousands of pounds strewed the desert.

Soon after getting on Carson’s river the emigrants were met by the government relief parties, with mules, oxen, and provisions, and just in time for many. We crossed one ridge of the mountains before any was offered to us, and we could of got through without any assistance, but we took a pair of Uncle Sam’s oxen and got through with ease.

Gov. Smith deserves the gratitude of the emigrants for the assistance rendered them, many of whom would have suffered otherwise. I suppose he was acting under instruction from the President, still much credit is due him for the promptness and order in which the business was done. We were later crossing the plains than I would ever be again. On the 19th (10th?) October there was a snow storm before us, in which a Dr. Brown of St. Louis was caught–his horses and four steers were frozen to death. His wife suffered greatly walking in snow two and three feet deep. It had melted when we got there, but the roads were still covered with ice in many places, and much snow in banks on the sides of the mountains.

The Indians became very troublesome to the last part of the emigrants–killed and run off a great deal of stock. Mr. Campbell was shot with an arrow while sleeping by the fire at our tent. They had been trying to steal some mules from a government train and were shot at–this enraged them–they came by our camp, Campbell was sleeping and Corneli(u)s Howard was on guard, sitting by him. They were both shot at, but Howard was missed. The other being more skillful hit Campbell, the arrow penetrating six folds of heavy blanketing, a vest, three shirts, a webbing belt, lodged against the first long rib below. The camp was soon up, but not a gun was loaded nor did any person know where the ammunition was but in about two hours we were all ready for the fight, and then we all went to bed and slept soundly till day.

My letter is already too long, but I could not make it any shorter. I am in a tent–the wind blowing like thunder, and roaring like all the flood gates of heaven were drifted away–a tin pan turned over my knee and my paper resting upon it. “Nuff sed.”

Your affectionate son
TYLER D. HEISKELL

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