Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1865-05-04
Letter from California.
SMELLING, MERGED Co., Cal.
March 9th. 1865. (

MdICL 4 Ill. lOUo.
w. J. WRIGGLEswoRTH, Esq.
Dear Friend Your letter OF date Jan.
god came by due course Of mail. [ am
happy to learn Of the welfare of yourself
and family, and that the good people Of my
old home still live though oppressed as
they are by heavy taxation, drouth, drafts
&c. However,th they are intensely loyal and
patriotic, and will bear their misfortunes
with as little murmurings, perhaps, as any
people in the U. S. From information de-
rived from the letters of my friends, and
through the papers of Old Iowa County,
among which I regularly welcome the
Chronicle, and for which ! return you many
thanks, am led to believe that what we
call in business parlance times" are very
hard in that once hourishing and prosper
Gus community. California too, complains
of the same misfortune. Last season was
extremely dry and many Of our farmers and
stock raisers, for the first time in this State
have been compelled to rigid economy.
Miners too, have suffered for want Of water
sufficient to successfully work the placer
mines and run the machinery Of quartz
mines, and though the returns for 1904
from the California mines is greater than
that of any preceding year, yet had the
season been as favorable as this bids to tie
the return would have been much greater.
But we have not SO great cause for com
plant as you who are east of the Rocky
Mountains. True we have had q drouth
and have equally as great or greater taxes
to pay, but we are fortunate in not having
to furnish men for the war Had Califor-
MIA been required to furnish her quota Of
men in the same proportion with Wiscon-
sin, it would have made material differ
ence in our prosperity. For though we
have furnished but few men for the war,
and the emigration from the other states
and Europe-and China too for we have
thousands of Celestials- has been great, we
have not as many men as could be success
fully employed.
This is certainly good field for enter
prise and industry. There are thousands
Of acres of excellent farming lands untouch-
ed, and upon which valuable, and product
i've farms could be made; and the country
is hardly prospected for mineral wealth.
Every day brings news of new discoveries
1t cannot be expected that there is the op-
portunity for placer mining that there was
in an early day, when men came here, and
with pick, shovel, rocker, long tom or
sluice, would wash out from half an ounce
to twenty ounces a day; those times are
gone never to return again. But discover
les Of quartz veins rich in gold, silver and
copper, and in which immense fortunes are
made, are being continually made The
Washoe country is no humbug though
pronounced such by the first discoveries,
after mere glance and before developing
its rich mines. Boise and Reese Rivers
and Mono smeralda are very rich.
Inc montgomery mining district IN Mo-
no County is now attracting most attention.
The first discoveries were made there last
summer; and, though as yet but little has
been done, the attention of capitalists is
attracted that way, and hundreds of thous-
ands of dollars worth of machinery will be
transported over the Sierra Ncvadas to that
place and put in operation this summer
Some of the pioneers of that county are
men Of enterprise, from this county and
vicinity, with whom am acquainted, and
of the truthfulness of their representations
/ | have not doubt.
The Montgomery is silver mining dis
trict, and from assays made, some of the
lodes exceed in richness the famous Com