Brides of the Gold Rush, 1851-1859 (Paperback)

by David Allan Comstock
Paperback/Hardback, 444 pages
Comstock Bonanza Press, January 1, 2000

This is a true account of life in the 1850s, when California’s three largest cities were San Francisco, Sacramento and Nevada City. The last named was a prosperous gold mining community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Five miles to the southwest lay the equally prosperous but less densely populated town of Grass Valley. North, south, east and west of these towns were dozens of smaller communities with such exotic names as Rough and Ready, Humbug, French Corral, Blue Tent, Gouge Eye, Red Dog and Orleans Flat.

Gold Diggers and Camp Followers, the first title in this series, described the people who occupied the land between the Yuba and Bear Rivers from 1845 to 1851. By means of letters, journals, newspaper accounts, and memoirs the author depicted the westward emigration of adventurous men and women to the Sierra Nevada foothills and the violent clash of their culture with that of the nisenan Indians who inhabited the area.

Brides of the Gold Rush continues the true story of Tallman Rolfe, a young printer and apostate Mormon who worked for newspapers in Nauvoo, Oregon City, San Francisco, and Sacramento before arriving at Nevada City in 1851. It recounts the further adventures of attorney Niles Searls and merchant Charles Mulford, who crossed the plains to California in 1849, prospected rivers and streams and opened a bookstore at Nevada City. In this volume, Niles and Charley marry hometown sweethearts and bring them to Nevada City, where they are joined by other classmates and friends from rural New York state.

Simmon Storms and David Bovyer, novice Indian traders from New England, befriend the Nisenan tribes and try with mixed success to shield them from invading whites and their diseases. Chief Wema soon realizes that his people have been offered a choice between extinction and relocation.

William M. Stewart and Aaron Sargent arrive at Nevada City and begin long and outstanding careers in journalism, law and national politics. The notorious dancer Lola Montez, once the intimate friend of Franz List and the King of Bavaria, settles in Grass Valley and involves the Searls and Mulford families in one of her many Nevada County escapades. Comstock says, “When I first peered into the archives and saw the rich array of characters whose notable careers began in this most cosmopolitan of mining camps, I realized I had rediscovered a forgotten world. The 1850s were exciting and formative years for an amazing parade of ambitious young men and women, and many became important figures in American history.”

While researching his first book, the author located more than 1000 unpublished letters written by nineteenth century correspondents in Nevada City and Rensselaerville, New York. Because at least half the letters were composed by young brides, we get a rare chance to observe this fascinating era from the viewpoints of both sexes. The author finds that women frequently tend to write more freely than men about a great variety of subjects, including politics, economics and crime. 

Fortunately Nevada City and Grass Valley at this time boasted three newspapers whose editors were well educated and versed in current events. In addition to reporting the news, they expressed strong convictions about personal and national destinies – even when those views are demonstrably wrong in hindsight, or intolerably racist and sexist by today’s standards, the intellectual content of what they wrote is arresting, and provides a valuable counterpoint to the letters.

David Allan Comstock is a writer, painter, and designer of books who lives in a remote corner of the Sierra Nevada forest, miles from the nearest utility lines. He and his wife Ardis built their six-sided, pole-supported house in the early 1970s; they cook and heat with wood, read by oil lamps, and in many respects share the lifestyle of pioneers described in his books. The Comstocks jointly compiled Index to the 1880 History of Nevada County and Nevada County Vital Statistics, 1850-1859, published and distributed by Comstock Bonanza Press.

“Writers have used diaries, letters and documents to record gold-rushers’ lives, but seldom as humanly and as sensitively as this biographer. He has found that women tend to write in more detail than men, and about a great variety of subjects, making his pages an adventure to read. His pioneers are not the morality-play heroes of the Old West, but real people, tangled in their feelings, decent, at times deficient—but always determined to meet the challenge.”

—Barbara Burdick, Monterey Peninsula Herald.

“The first volume of David Allan Comstock’s Nevada County Chronicles focused on the men who joined the rush for gold and found opportunity in Nevada City, the largest and most prosperous mining town of the early fifties; this volume is on the brides they brought to their new home. … This book quotes extensively from a large and remarkable cache of letters … [that] reveal much that we only suspected about women in the mines.”

—Ralph Mann, California History magazine.

“An absorbing history of a frontier community that is distinctive because … gold prospecting is its major attraction.”

—Wendell Tripp, New York History magazine.

“Brides of the Gold Rush presents the thrilling and vast mosaic of frontier life-here is Lola Montez and her bear, duels, prize fights, lynchings, claim jumping, the Know-Nothing party, the disgraceful treatment of the Indians, the rampant racism and, of course, 19th-century sexism. . . . Fascinating material to begin with, of course; but David Comstock’s rare gift of creating entertaining history shouldn’t be minimized.”

—Jesse F. Knight, The Californians magazine.

“Because the women are caught up in the details of daily living, their letters are delightfully personal and informal.. And it’s greatly to the author’s credit that while the book is filled with the warmth of these letters, he also paints a picture of a burgeoning city, political rivalries, brushes with the Indians-the excitement of the times.”

—Jean Couzens, Sierra Heritage magazine.

“Based on public records and private papers, the account provides new insights into early California.”

—Pasadena Star-News.