Gold Fever Empties the Army Posts—and Leaves Steilacoom’s Mail in a Canoe
A steamer from the north brings word of rich surface diggings on the Fraser and Thompson rivers, soldiers deserting lower Puget Sound posts, and Steilacoom cut off from its mail.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
By the arrival of the steamer Sea Bird, Capt. Connor, we are placed in possession of intelligence respecting the lately discovered gold fields on Fraser’s and Thompson’s rivers, fully confirming all previous reports.
From gentlemen who were passengers in the Sea Bird, we learn that the Hudson’s Bay Company at Victoria have received within the last month about one hundred and ten pounds of gold dust from the Indians. This was obtained merely from surface diggings, without the aid of anything more than the rude articles—such as pans and willow baskets—used by the Indians.
Col. Fitzhugh has not had time to work further than to put in six [claims?]; all his hands have left.
Numerous desertions have taken place from the military posts on the lower part of the Sound.
Parties are arriving daily on sailing vessels from San Francisco, bound to the mines.
We learn that the steamer Constitution is to leave soon for San Francisco. What use she can be put to elsewhere we cannot imagine; she has been of no use here. In this connection we would state that the Constitution has discontinued her trips on the Sound; and, with the Sea Bird here, owing to the unlimited means and untiring energy of the mail contractors, we are dependent upon canoe service for the carrying of our mail. One week ago, the newspaper mail for this place was landed at Port [illegible] by the Columbia, but no part of it has been seen in this section of the country. We are in much worse condition, as regards our mail service from San Francisco at this date, than when it was [entrusted to] the Columbia River.
“We are dependent upon canoe service for the carrying of our mail.”
The Fraser River gold rush was the Pacific Northwest’s first great boom, pulling soldiers, ships and supplies north almost overnight. Steilacoom’s complaint that its mail had been reduced to canoe service is a frontier version of an infrastructure crisis—when a resource rush redirects labor and transport, the people left behind feel it immediately. The same tension between boomtown opportunity and neglected public services still runs through Washington’s growth debates.
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