As short a tale as it is, believe it or not, this is one of your most requested Christmas stories. So yes, I'm reprinting The Story Of The Christmas Nugget below because you've said you haven't been able to find it. I hope you enjoy it.
The story below talks about how Christmas was a huge celebration that was always looked forward to during the years of the California Gold Rush. And yes, as with other Christmas celebrations all having their own customs taking place in different regions of the nation, Christmas in the California Far West had its own customs.
Because the California Gold Rush was such an extraordinary event that brought people from all corners of the earth, many who participated in the Gold Rush were young and far from home. Many were from foreign lands, many religions, and many cultural customs. All were factors that added to the intense revelry, fun, and sense of fellowship during Christmas.
In its earliest days, the Gold Rush was almost exclusively male and the sentiment was usually a mixture of homesickness, horseplay, and revelry. Yes, Christmas celebrations in the mining camps were typical for the 19th-century American West.
A Gold Rush Christmas was usually an unassuming, often spontaneous affair that consisted primarily of eating, drinking, companionship and entertainment. Although in the mid-19th century, gift-giving was becoming fashionable, if there were presents in the gold fields they were practical in nature.
For example, clothing, hats, gloves, knitted socks, scarves, and mittens were always prized. In the towns where there were children, little girls received homemade rag dolls and miniature quilts while little boys received tops or other wooden toys.
Alfred Doten, who is well known to have chronicled the Gold Rush, was also a friend of Mark Twain during Twain's extremely brief stay in the California Gold Country. Doten was widely renowned as a leading "reveler," and he described Christmas in Amador County in 1853. In his account, Doten talked about how he threw a "Christmas Spree" which featured "a glorious game supper of fried deer tongue, liver, quails, and hares, washed down with barrels of cognac and accompanied by fiddle, flute, banjo, clarinet, and accordion music."
Andrew Hall Gilmore wrote about his California Christmas Day experience in 1851 in a letter to his brother in Indiana:
Thursday night - 25th
Dear Brother,
"Christmas Gift to You." Oh, I wish that I could be at home today. I think we would have a Christmas party. We would have the old gobbler roasted with a score of fat hens, pound cakes, pies, and lots of other good things. But the best of all would be the pleasure of seeing you all. Probably if we live we may be with you next Christmas.
I will tell you what kind of a day it has been and what we have been doing. It has been the most rainy day I believe that I have ever seen in this country. …
As we had no invitations to any Christmas parties: and feeling no inclination to go on a "bust", we thought we might spend the day as profitably by going down to our diggings and working like fine fellows, even if it was Christmas and awful rainy at that. So Aaron and I encased ourselves in our waterproof suits and went to work ….
We made $11.25 each, which was a tolerably good rainy day's work.
Just so my readers know, $11.25 in 1851 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $435.41 today (2022).
An elaborate California Christmas during the Gold Rush was described by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe in 1851. Better known as Dame Shirley, Ms Clappe wrote a series of letters describing her life in the Gold Rush community of Rich Bar on the Feather River.
These letters are considered one of the best eyewitness accounts of the California Gold Rush. Here, Dame Shirley recalls the "Saturnalia" of Christmas 1851:
The saturnalia commenced on Christmas evening, at the Humboldt [Saloon], which, on that very day, had passed into the hands of new proprietors. The most gorgeous preparations were made for celebrating the two events. The bar was retrimmed with red calico, the bowling-alley had a new lining of the coarsest and whitest cotton cloth, and the broken lamp-shades were replaced by whole ones.
All day long, patient mules could be seen descending the hill, bending beneath casks of brandy and baskets of champagne, and, for the first time in the history of that celebrated building, the floor (wonderful to relate, it has a floor) was washed.
At nine o'clock in the evening they had an oyster-and-champagne supper in the Humboldt, which was very gay with toasts, songs, speeches, etc. I believe that the company danced all night. At any rate, they were dancing when I went to sleep, and they were dancing when I woke the next morning. The revel was kept up in this mad way for three days, growing wilder every hour.
At nine o'clock in the evening they had an oyster-and-champagne supper in the Humboldt, which was very gay with toasts, songs, speeches, etc. I believe that the company danced all night. At any rate, they were dancing when I went to sleep, and they were dancing when I woke the next morning. The revel was kept up in this mad way for three days, growing wilder every hour.
The Story Of The Christmas Nugget
Yes, there is the California Gold Rush Christmas story of the "Christmas Nugget" which was recounted in William P. Bennett’s 1893 memoir of the California Gold Rush entitled The First Baby in Camp.
On Christmas Day in 1849, Mrs. William George Wilson delivered a healthy 12-pound baby boy at Canyon Creek, near Georgetown up near Hangtown which is modern-day Placerville.
Soon the news spread to a neighboring claim. Then before you knew it, the gold field grapevine had spread the news that Bill Wilson had struck it rich with a 12-pound nugget.
"News of the big find spread like wildfire up and down the canyon where hundreds of men were at work," wrote Bennett, "At once, there was a grand rush to Bill Wilson's cabin. Every miner was anxious to see the 12-pound lump."
Seeing that most took the news literally, the Wilsons thoroughly enjoyed the moment as the men lined up at the cabin door to get a look at the large nugget.
"Then a few were let in at a time to view the Christmas nugget." Bennett wrote. "Each of the miners loved being had."
For three more days, the joke continued throughout the area. Bennett wrote of miners who came from more than ten miles away to see the giant "Christmas Nugget."
For all, it turned out to be a very Merry Christmas. One that many talked about for months to come. One that few forgot. After all, it was a Christmas gift that spoke to their struggle and sacrifice, their hard work and search, the elusive prize they all sought, and their belief that it was something that they too would find. Such a nugget was a reminder that it was within their grasp to have those things that mean more than gold.
For as Bennett recalled, "As each squad came out of the cabin, the men solemnly asserted that the Wilson nugget was the finest ever seen."
Yes, it was a very Merry Christmas indeed.
Merry Christmas!
Tom Correa
I just love that story about the Christmas Nugget. Say, I've got a funny story I wanna tell ya. I call it "Henry Finds A Nugget". One day, a man named Henry Atwood was traveling through California when he noticed something shiny on the ground. He examined it further and found it was a gold nugget. He took it home and showed his wife. He said, "Mabel, in all my years of searching, I ain't never seen nothin' quite like this." He then showed it to his friends, George Timmons and Bud Fleek. George and Bud were not convinced that this was a real gold nugget. They asked Henry, "Where'd you ever get that nugget?" Henry said, "I found it in the ground not too far from the town of Tahoe." Then Henry told George and Bud to look after it. He then said, "Whatever you do, don't mess with it or drop it." George and Bud promised they would take good care of the precious nugget until Henry got back. Then George came up with a funny, yet evil idea. He was gonna have Mabel come into the kitchen and then he was gonna put Heinz tomato ketchup on the gold nugget and tell her that it was a different kind of nugget. So he called Mabel into the kitchen, squirted ketchup on the nugget, and told her it was actually a chicken nugget. Mabel bit into the nugget and her front tooth broke off into the nugget. When Henry got back from Christmas shopping, he noticed Mabel's front tooth in the nugget and asked, "What is Mabel's tooth doing in my nugget?" George said, "What? You said it was a nugget!" Henry said, "I didn't say it was THAT kind of nugget! And look, there's ketchup on it. You ruined my prized possession!" Bud then asked, "Henry, where exactly did you find this gold nugget?" Henry said, "I told you. I found it outside of Tahoe!" Bud then asked, "Where outside of Tahoe did you find this gold nugget?" Henry said, "I found it outside of a McDonald's". George then took a look at the nugget and exclaimed, "Why Henry, that ain't no gold nugget at all. That's a day old chicken nugget covered in yellow spray paint!" Well at least he found a nugget. Haha.
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