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“Jane i left you and them boys for no other reason than this to come here to procure a littl property by the swet of my brow so that we could have a place of our own that i mite not be a dog for other people any longer…i think that this is a far better country to lay up money than it is at home, if a man will…tend to his business and keep out of licker shops and gambling houses, that is the way the money goes with many of them in this country, thare are murders commited about every day on the acount of licker and gambling but i have not bought a glass of licker since i left home.…i never knew what it was to leave home till i left a wife and children.…i know you feel lonsom when night apears but let us think that it is for the best so to be and do the best we can for two years or so and i hope Jane that we shell be reworded for so doing and meet in a faniely sircal once more, that is my prayer…”

— A miner’s letter to his wife, March, 1852 .