As I work on my current novel, I am mired again in the vagaries of the mail system in 1850-51. I wrote a post on this topic when I was working on Now I’m Found, in which letters between the characters provided many of the plot’s turning points. In my […]
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The Vagaries of Mail Service During the Early California Gold Rush
One of the issues I have dealt with in my novel about the California Gold Rush is long-distance communications in the West between 1848 and 1850. I have characters living in Oregon, others in California, and they have relatives in Missouri and Massachusetts. The only way people could communicate over […]
Continue readingAn Empty InBox
Many years ago, my department at work took the Gallup StrengthsFinder survey to find out what we were best at, as defined by Gallup. At the top of my list was “Input.” That sounded odd to me, but the description of this strength said it meant I liked to collect […]
Continue readingCalifornia Grows Quickly Despite Slow Communications
Throughout 1848, fortune-seekers streamed into California, even though the U.S. government had not yet acknowledged the discovery of gold. By October 1848, there were 8,000 men mining for gold in California, doubled from the 4,000 in July of that year. William T. Sherman made his second trip to the gold […]
Continue readingCalifornia Gold Rush: Discovery of Gold at Sutter’s Mill
Most of us who have studied American history are aware of the Forty-Niners—those intrepid souls who in 1849 left their homes to seek their fortunes in the California Gold Rush. But the Gold Rush actually began in early 1848, when gold was found at Sutter’s Mill. Over the last two […]
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