Letters home and personal diaries are the source of information about the lives of individuals who arrived during the early years of the gold rush. Before the opening of the Post Office at Bidwell’s Bar, mail reaching that location was brought by teamsters delivering food and mining supplies. Prior to 1855, the fee for the mail service was paid at the point of delivery. At a central mail delivery point, teamsters would collect letters for destinations along their supply route, pay the postage and collect the postage and a delivery fee when letters were claimed by the miners. Letters sent from Bidwell were entrusted to individuals who would take the letters to the nearest post office. John Bidwell provided that service for members of the Pleasant Hill Wagon Train after they arrived at Bidwell’s on October 15, 1849. A Post Office was established at Bidwell’s Bar on July 10, 1851. Edmund Shepherd was appointed Postmaster. By 1851, stage lines had scheduled service to the town which provided a more timely and dependable mail service
You are reading this history on an electronic device that in a matter of seconds permits free face-to-face video communication to any location in the world! During the Gold Rush, letters mailed from Bidwell’s Bar would not reach the eastern states for two or three months. Writers bemoaned the fact they have not received a reply to letters sent six months previous! Many letters never reached the intended location.
One way to feel the personal longing for information reflected in the letters is to substitute the names of personal family members in the place of those in the letter. Or place yourself in the role of the recipient of the letter, reading the lines of the letter written two months ago with a stub of a pencil or by campfire light with a quill pin. Imagine learning for the first time of feelings of loved ones or friends, the living conditions at of the mining camps and the success or failure in the search to find gold.
Click on links below to open the individual letters
