Hambleton, Chalkley J.:

$1,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

A GOLD HUNTER'S EXPERIENCE. Inscribed "Compliments of Chalkley J. Hambleton," on first free endpaper. A firsthand account of the author's gold hunting expedition to Pikes Peak. "This simple and unpretentious account of a journey across the plains to Colorado in the summer of 1860, followed by the story of Hambleton's experiences for the next two years in mining in Colorado, is most interesting and well told" – Streeter. In the summer of 1860, Chalkeley Hambleton was stricken with "a bad attack of gold fever." Having formed a partnership with three other men - Enos Ayres, T.R. Stubbs, and John Sollitt - Hambleton left Chicago and set out by ox cart on August 1, 1860, from St. Joseph, Missouri, with fourteen wagonloads of equipment weighing twenty-four tons, bound for Denver, Colorado. Included are his accounts of the Sioux Indians; descriptions of climate and landscape, flora and fauna from buffalo herds and prairie dogs to wolves, rattlesnakes, and cactus plants; and recollections of his discouraging encounters with "the returning army of disappointed gold seekers," whose "most pressing wants were tobacco and whisky," and who "told sad stories about life in the mountains." He recalls as well passing many of the "[g]raves of those who had given up the struggle of life on the way." Having survived the journey there, Hambleton arrived in Denver, which at the time was "a lively place, with a few dozen frame and log buildings, and probably a thousand or more people. Most of them l

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