By Anna Kathryn Lanier
Luzena Stanley Wilson was someone who didn't let opportunity
pass her by. When she and her husband
moved from Missouri to California in 1849, she was just following his dreams of
striking it rich in the gold fields. After the typical rough journey to reach
the promise land of Nevada City, California, a tent city set in two ravines.
The streets teemed with men, and a woman was such an unusual sight, they’d come
by just to see Luzena and her two boys.
The family couldn't afford a tent, so they set up house in
their wagon under some trees. Her first task was to wash the dirt and grime off
her boys, “I scrubbed those children until my arms ached before I got them back
to their natural hue.” In her own washing, she emptied the washbasin three
times and knew she still didn't look as she had before the journey began. She
was sunburned, her bonnet shabby, the hem of her dress ragged above her ankles
and the sleeves were tattered.
After cleaning herself and her boys, she set about fixing
dinner. As she cooked, a miner approached.
“I’ll give five dollars for one of those biscuits, ma’am.” It wasn't much for her to add a bit more
flour to her mix and make five dollars on the spot. She then studied the market
and learned that the local hotel charged one dollar per meal. As her husband
spent days trying to strike it rich in the gold fields, Luzena went about her
own way to earn riches.
She set up simple plank tables and bought supplies from the
local store. She then cooked enough food
to feed a small army. When Mason trudged home after a long day of work, he
discovered 20 miners eating at his wife’s ‘hotel.’ Each man had paid a dollar
for the meal and promised to be return customers. Luzena knew that she had hit pay dirt.
Within six weeks, she’d made seven hundred dollars. With the money, she improved her building
with a roof and added more tables. Eventually, she built a bare wooden
building, and charging twenty-five dollars a week, served between seventy-five
and two hundred boarders a week. Eventually, she hired cooks and waiters.
Luzena then decided they could make even more money if they
opened a dry goods store. After six
months, the couple’s hotel was worth ten thousand dollars and the stock in
their store worth even more. Luzena’s next enterprise was to become a bank—loaning
out money at ten-percent.
Banks were scares in Nevada City, so Luzena often used her
oven as a vault. She later remarked that
she’d” closed the oven door on two milk pans piled high with bags of gold
dust.” She’d sleep with her mattress
lined with riches, at one time having more than $200,000 hidden in her bedroom.
Fire! Fire! rang through streets of Nevada City in the
middle of night. Residents, including
Luzena and Mason, only had time to toss on a robe and rush outside. Within a few hours, most of the city lay in
ashes. The El Dorado Hotel and the dry
goods store were nothing but piles of dust. The Masons were destitute. They sold their city lot, packed up their children
and left Nevada City with a mere $500.
There’s not anything else mention in WITH GREAT HOPE: Women
of the California Gold Rush by JoAnn Chartier and Chris Enss about the Masons.
I don’t know what they did after losing their livelihood. But Luzena is quoted
as saying, decades later, “The rags and tatters of my first days in California
are well nigh forgotten in the ease and plenty of the present.” So, the family must have done well for
themselves.
For further reading:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/three/luzena.htm
(her book, online)
Anna Kathryn Lanier
Romance Author, A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE
Romance Author, A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE
