The Gold Hunters: A First-Hand Picture of Life in California Mining Camps in the Early Fifties

The Gold Hunters offers a unique look at the life in the gold camps of the nineteenth century American West — the different cultures attracted by the discovery of gold, how they related to one another and their contrasting food, clothes and entertainment.

John David Borthwick (1824-1892), born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a prominent physician, was a nomadic Scottish journalist and author who received both a gentleman’s and artist’s education. In 1845, an inheritance was settled on him, and w...