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

“I do not know of another story by an actual miner that is so well written and so true to that wonderful life in the Days of Gold.” Horace Kephart

The California Gold Rush is one the most interesting periods in American history and J.D. Borthwick’s classic memoir captures the prosperity and excitement of the West Coast in the early 1850s.

Following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, Scotsman Borthwick left New York and sailed to the West Coast where he joined the gold hunters of California.

Borthwick’s account provides a fascinating look at life in the new cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, chronicling the often lawless society which came hand in hand with the newly found wealth of the gold hunters.

Drinking, gambling and violence played a huge part in Borthwick’s world and his memoir includes many compelling tales of personal scrapes and adventures.

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, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1824, was a nomadic Scottish journalist and author, he first arrived in North America in 1847 and three years later found himself in the Gold Rush of California. He eventually left America in 1856 and spent the rest of his days in Scotland and London. This edited edition of Borthwick's memoir was first published in 1917.