When I first started research for my upcoming book, and sought a logical location within Tuolumne County close to where logging in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains took place in the 1800s. I looked at Tuolumne City. For a town that never was very large, it has some interesting history.
To include the following historical event in 1858 that had profound effect on Elizabeth’s life, The California gold rush—although it had switched from placer mining to other forms—was still going strong. As the discovery of gold embedded in quartz led to underground mines—particularly in the East Belt near Turnback Creek—lumber became an important commodity. That provided my opportunity to include my “mountain man” lumberjack in a situation he later wished he had avoided.
There are several retellings of this event—most placing it in 1857. However, I will allow the newspaper account tell the story. This is taken from the January 20, 1858 edition of the Daily Alta Californian. The original story came from the Sonora Herald, Tuolumne County’s local newspaper. Unfortunately, these years of the Herald were not available on the California Digitized Newspaper Collection.
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| Carter's store |
I will say at this point that all the local historians give the location of this meeting as Carter’s store, not Robinson’s store. This comes from more than one history written local historians.
It is known that C.H. Carter started his retail business by the Long Gulch mining area. Once he learned of the richness of the gold found in the Eureka Quartz Mine in northeast Summersville, he packed up his store and moved next to the mine. Mr. Baker, a docent at the Tuolumne Memorial Historical Museum, and a direct descendent of one of the earlier Tuolumne City families, supports the view it was Carter’s store. As he pointed out, “There just wasn’t very much in his area at that time.”
In addition, I checked newspaper articles and the 1860 and 1850 Census reports. I found no listings for a Robinson who was a merchant.
I based several chapters in my Wyatt’s New Bride, which is available as of September 26, 2024, on this incident. Although Wyatt is a fictional character, I included all of the names in this article in my story.
Here is the book description:
Wyatt Holt gave up searching for gold. Instead, he found work as a lumberjack to satisfy the demand for timber supports in the new Tuolumne County quartz mines and lumber for the nearby towns. He is tired of sharing barracks-style quarters with other men. With more men bringing families to the logging camps and living in company-provided cabins, he begins his search for a wife. Guided by the most unlikely of matchmakers, he corresponds with, and then sends for, a bride.
Following the murder of her husband, to provide for herself and her young daughter, Rosalie Barker turns her home into a boardinghouse for the local gold miners. As the two-year anniversary of her late husband’s death approaches, on the night of a miner’s meeting, three of her boarders and two strangers—one seriously wounded—enter her home just as she prepares to bar the door. They beg her to care for the unconscious man. She had not been able to help her late husband. Can she keep this man alive long enough for the doctor in Sonora ten miles away to brave winter weather, swollen creeks, and bad roads to arrive and take over?
Between being shot during a meeting gone bad, no longer able to support the bride he sent for, and uncertain if he will heal well enough to work again as a lumberjack, is there is any hope for a loving wife and family in Wyatt’s future?
To find the purchase link for Wyatt’s New Bride, please CLICK HERE
Sources:
https://sierranevadageotourism.org/entries/summersville-now-tuolumne-no-407-california-historical-landmark/e0f91d76-82fa-44f6-9736-5f4c51da5a43
California Digital Newspaper Collection; https://cdnc.ucr.edu/
https://tchistory.org/out-to-tuolumne/
https://tuolumnemuseum.wordpress.com/our-rich-history/
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