Philip Burlingham Letters

Philip Burlingham to his son-in-law and daughter William and Inez Pinney, and to his son Calvin, 6 December 1870

[This letter mentions his wages, and expenses for boarding; describes some prospecting he had done; talks about the search for a man that was missing after leaving on a hunting trip; says he'll head for home in early April; describes using a plaster to remove a sore (wart?) on his nose; and talks about his work hewing timber.]

Soapweed Tuesday Afternoon Dec 6 1870

Dear Son¹ and Daughter²

I take my pen to answer Williams kind letter of the 21st Nov. which came to hand today noon and I hasten to answer it. I am well and hope this will find you and all the friends in like good health.

The weather here is quite changeable. Last friday it rained a little, Saturday was showery, Sunday was fair, Monday was dark and cloudy til noon when it commenced snowing and snowed fast all the rest of the day and kept on til about 9 in the evening. The snow fell about 7 inches deep. Today is cloudy but it is warm and the snow is leaving rapidly.

I am at work by the day at $2.50 per day and pay $5 per week for board. Since last Thursday I have done 1 1/2 days work and if I work tomorrow I will have 10 shillings due me for the week ending tomorrow night. The superintendant of the mines hired a mill wright and gave him charge of the hands and charge of putting up the buildings and he went home last Thursday and has not got back yet and the superintendent don't know what he wants done and the consequence is the hands have to stay idle in good weather and pay board at $5 per week. That seems hard but stil it is better than no work.

The sun is shining beautifully and there is a prospect of a spel of good fair weather perhaps til Christmas. People that live here tel me that it is warm here in the winter when ever the sun shines. Last winter the deepest snow here was about 2 feet and that did not last but a short time. Mr. Eberts³ came over from Placerville this forenoon and he said 7 miles from here thare was no snow and here if the snow had all laid on it would have been 2 feet deep.

I went out prospecting last Sunday but did not find anything. I went down to Scab Creek a stream about as big as Pine Creek and whare I struck it was about 6 rods wide and the whole bed of the stream was sollid rock from the mountain on one side to the mountain on the other side and the mountains on each side are almost perpendicular. I went down the stream about 10 rods and could get no further without backing out and climing the side of the mountain. I came to fals about 20 whare the rock broke off perpendicular at least 20 feet or more down. I then went up the stream and soon got headed off and left in disgust and climbed the mountain again and took a long tramp looking for a man⁴ that went out hunting last Thursday morning and has not been seen or heard of since. They hunted for him Saturday Sunday and Monday in the forenoon. There was about 30 men in the woods looking for him til it got to snowing so hard that they had to give up and come in. He was an old man near 60 years old and followed hunting for a living. He took a young dog with a rope around his neck and tied to his belt. It is thought that he came across a grizley or a California lion and wounded the beast which ever it mite be and got chewed up both him and his dog. Others think he mite have sliped and fell down the rocks or down some of the many steep mountain defiles and got either killed or disabled. Others think that a limb from a tree fel on him. But the later supposition is not at all likely for it was a still sunshiny day and not a breath of air stiring to bring down a limb or tree.

But enough of this. I am glad to learn that you and Henry⁵ are doing well. Give my respects to your father⁶ and Henry and Mary.⁷ I am doing well as could be expected under all the circumstances. I hired for forty dollars per month and board when I came to settle with the agent of the mine he paid me fifty dollars and board. That was what the young able bodied men had and the agent said that I had done just as much work as any of them and it was no more than wright that I should have the same wages that they had and so he paid me fifty instead of forty dollars per month. I don't expect to do as well through the winter as I have for the 2 months and a little over since I began work here. But I shall try and doo as well as I can.

I think it was ten dollars that you owed me for hay but I don't remember exactly. We can talk it up when I get home.

That is wright keep account of what you get for the folks and as you say we will make it all right. I shall come home in the spring if I live to get home. There is but 2 things that can prevent me from coming home in the spring and they are 1st sickness and second Death. It is true I may be robed but in that case I think I could raise means to come home. I would do so even if I had to work and beg my passage or in other words I shal start for home the fore part of April and if I don't run off the track I shall be there before the first of May.

That sore on my nose I took off last July. I put a plaster on it and kept it on 10 days and then tied a thread around and pulled it out by the roots. I then dressed it with chemical Plaster and healed it up sound in eight days and has not troubled any since. It appears to be as sound and well as it ever was. It leaves quite a bad scar. It left a hole that I could put the end of my finger in and it healed up so quick that it did not fill up quite level.

I thank you for your kind letter and hope you will write often. Kiss the babies for me for I don't see any little ones here. I haint seen a woman in nearly a month. I can sympathize with you fully about a noisy place to write for I have to write in the sleeping room and do my writing when the rest of the hands are all in and they are always talking and telling anecdotes and laughing and it is most impossible to think of anything that I want to write.

It is evening and the hands are all gone up to Dutch Franks.⁸ The word came here while we ware at supper that he had fell and cut himself very bad. It is said that he nearly cut one of his hands off. It is about 100 rods up there. He lives in a cabin alone and is about forty five years old. There is ten men at work here and only 3 that are married or ever have been and their ages are from 35 to 64 years and the whole community will average as much as 9 old bachellors out of evry 10 men.

But I must stop lest I weary your patience. Trouble with me is when I get to writing to any of my folks I don't know when to stop and I exhaust evry subject that I touch uppon. Please write soon as convenient. Good bye for this time.

P. Burlingham

To William & Inez Pinney

Dear Calvin⁹ I will write a few lines in this to let you know that I have not forgotten you nor any of the rest of the loved ones at home but what shall I write about. I have written all I know to William and Inez. I write this the same evening that I wrote the foregoing letter.

I think that I am well yet for I eat a hearty supper of fried pork cold boiled beef baked potato and hash and apple sauce buiscuits and butter and surrup and washed the whole down with a good cup of tea and on the whole I have to complain of feeling rather comfortable and that is the way it is nearly all the time with me when my arms don't get lame. My arms have been so lame for the last 2 months that I could hardly wash my face. But when I don't hew any for 3 or 4 days as is the case now they get nearly well. But I think I am done hewing or nearly so. I have hewed timber a good share of the time for over 2 months. Some of the time I have scored and hewed all alone, some of the time I have had one hand to help score and some of the time 2 hands and some of the time 4 hands to score. 4 hands kept me humping to keep up. The timber averaged from 6 inches up to 24 inches square.

Now Calvin try and write as often as you can and write good long letters. It will be a satisfaction to me to read them and will help you to compose and accustom you to write and improve the mind generally. Please write often and get in a habit of writing small and close together. But I must stop for this time. So good bye.

P. Burlingham

to Calvin

 

Copyright Charles Towne. Usage of this work is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0
Compiler: Charles Towne

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