| Title: | John Wightman jun., San Francisco to John Wightman, Belfast |
|---|---|
| ID | 3331 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Wightman, John Jr/19 |
| Year | 1862 |
| Sender | Wightman, John Jr. |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Destination | Belfast, N.Ireland |
| Recipient | Editor of the Belfast News-Letter |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | sends letter to newspaper, penned by |
| Source | The Belfast News-Letter, Friday, 3 October, 1862. |
| Archive | The Central Library, Belfast |
| Doc. No. | 104158 |
| Date | 03/10/1862 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | Document added by LT, 30:04:01. |
| Word Count | 1011 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | BRITISH COLUMBIA. Belfast, Sept. 29, 1862. To the Editor of the Belfast News-Letter. Sir - As this colony has excited a good deal of interest, I feel called upon, in order to let the public know the state of affairs in that country, to insert some extracts from a letter I have just received from my son. John Wightman. "San Francisco, Aug.20, 1862. " On the 5th June I started from Victoria, V.I. [Vancouver Island?], in a steamer for New Westminster. Our party of five bought a tent and some provisions for our journey. New Westminster is a nice little town, where soldiers are quartered. We left in two days for Douglas, in another steamer. We walked about twelve miles a-day on an average on the way up to the mines. I went by Douglas, Lillooet, and the Brigade Trail, and thus walked 349 miles to Antler Creek. In among these lakes the road lies alongside of rivers that run from one lake to another. We are at the base of stupendous and almost perpendicular mountains, covered with snow all the time. It took a week to go to Lillooet. We crossed the lakes in small steamers, for which we paid one dollar each lake; and here, I may say, our journey only commenced, as we had been walking in a waggon road, but now we were to take the Trail for it. The Trail is a path made by blazing the trees, and this, in some parts, is the worst Trail ever man travelled, especially near Cariboo, as there it rains a great deal every day. We laid in a new stock of provisions at Lillooet at from 1s to 2s per lb. - flour, beans, and bacon, which is nearly all the food to be had, except at Victoria, V.I. [Vancouver Island?]. I started with fifteen in company, and of that lot I only went to the mines; the others turned from bad accounts - mosquitoes, bad roads, and want of money. The first house after we left Lillooet that we came to, we were charged 2s 6d per lb. for flour, and it increased graduallly till we got to the mines, when it was 5s per lb.; tea,10s; box of matches, 3s, and everything in proportion. These high prices were owing to the rush of people, and want of pack-horses. If all the people that went to Cariboo had stopped there they would have died of starvation. I met about 100 to 150 every day coming back, and all giving a fearful account of the place, but I was bound to see it, and would not turn till I had. It took me a month to go, and I hope never again to see such a place. Talk about a small farmer doing well there; he might as well be in the moon. or on the top of the Himalaya Mountains. Nothing will grow but stunted trees; nothing could ripen; nothing could be saved from the rain; no animal would live there, as it is all rain in the Summer, three months, and snow in the Winter, nine months; all mountains, trees, and water, and nothing else. As to the gold, there is plenty of it, but it is all claimed, and outside of the claims there is none to be got, nor will it ever be a good country if one hundred times the gold were found. I stopped a week in the mines to see it, and be able to tell something about it, and then set off for San Francisco, as in British Columbia I do not want to live, where every thing and every person are almost as wild as savages. The men who went up this year are all broken, as they had only as much money as would take them there, and many not so much as that, and, as there was not work for them in Cariboo, and no more gold to be found, they had to beg their way down as best they could. One nice lot of young Englishmen have come to grief; they are in hard work, at wages they can only live on, and will get no work in the Winter. As an instance, one who was educated for a clergyman of the Church of England dug a grave in Victoria, V.I. [Vancouver Island?] When I was there I was broken myself; but, as I had good friends, I did not mind that much. I never gave way to despair, as some of them did; but I hope no friend of mine will ever pull up at another Cariboo, or, as they call it here, Bugaboo. Plenty of men have and will make fortunes; but the masses will never get their heads above water. Capitalists would make well in the country, but not at mining; they would be almost certain to lose at that; but at store-keeping or packing they would make a fortune. 10,000 people took their chance in it, with, say £100 each, and out of the lot not more than 500 to 1,000 will make anything, and not near so much gold will come out of the mines this year as has been spent in looking for it. The United States Consul sent 400 down free, as they threatened to burn down Victoria, V.I., [Vancouver Island?] and would have done so. It is untrue about so much game being in the country. I did not see more than a dozen birds worth shooting on the whole route, the birds' instinct being of more use to them there than man's reason to him. Let no friend of mine go to Cariboo unless he has money to lose, and plenty of friends to help him, for it is just a small chance if he is able to get along, and a very small chance of his making a fortune. The party who brought us all on this fool's errand never was within 300 miles of the mines, and his brother, who has a claim in Cariboo, had not as much as would buy his supper when I saw him. " JOHN WIGHTMAN, jun." |
