May 8, 1853
May 8th 1853
My Dear Sarah:
I now take the first opportunity of writing to you a few lines to let you know that I am well. Hoping that these few lines will find you the same. My dear, I received your letter dated January 23th [on] May the first and was very happy to hear from you and that you were well.
Sarah, the reason I have not written to you before this is that I have been up to Sears’s Diggings all winter; a mining that I could not make convenient. At that time the snow up there has been 16 feet deep; so that the mail could not get through. My dear, I have just returned back to Stoney Bar the first day of May. Here I got 5 letters from home and among them was one from you.
Sarah, I have got a good Claim up there, which I could have sold for the sum of 275 dollars, but I thought it best not to sell it. So I got a man to work in it for 5 dollars per day. My Claim pays me from 12 to 20 dollars per day but I could not stay to work it myself as I had to come down to commence fluming on Stoney Bar. So I am here now and we the Stoney Bar Company have come mined; getting out the timber, which I think we will be in the river about the 20th of June; taking out the gold. That is all I can say about all the news unless one thing else I have.
My dear Sarah, your only brother George came very near drowning the other day. He was crossing the river one morning, [over] which there was a rail I stretched across the river for safety, but he let go [of] the rope and over the rapids he went. He jumped to swim but could no[t] make the shore. He going over the second rapids he accidentally came in collision with the boat and catched the boat, got in, and went down the river about a mile, whence the boat struck a rock, and there she abode for about 2 hours. We got 3 ropes attached to another boat from both sides of the river and lowered it down the river to the edge of the falls so that he could jump out of the one into the other. So by that method of working we made out to save him.
He has not been very well all winter. He went down to the Doctor’s to find out what was the matter. He told him that his liver was affected. I think he will be home next fall if he lives. He did not tell me so, but I got it from a good authority.
I will write you before long again. I will make this short. You may expect another before long. Give my love to all the old folks at home. Sarah, you may tell father that I have made $400 hundred dollars without any of his. He knows I am much obliged to him. I will try and do him the same compliment.
My dear Sarah, have patience and be a good girl and I will try and be home soon. Accept of my best love and best wishes from your most affectionate lover,
John Bryden
Written in ink on blue, portrait-ruled rag paper, about 8” x 10”, with a watermark in the top, left hand corner. The watermark says P&P within a decorative border.
