A forty-niner speaks

Hiram Dwight Pierce (b. 1810) was a successful blacksmith in Troy, New York, when news arrived of gold discoveries in California. Leaving his wife and seven children behind, Pierce set out in March 1849, crossing the Isthmus to reach San Francisco. A forty-niner speaks (1930) prints the contents of notebooks kept by Pierce from the day he left Troy until his return in January 1851. He describes his journey west and work in the gold fields near Sacramento, the Stanislas mines, and the Merced River at Washington Flat, until his return home via Panama. Pierce offers an excellent account of the details of a prospector's life and the organization of miners' camps as business companies and local government units.