"The early miner has never been truly painted. I protest against the flippant style and eccentric heroic of those writers who have made him a terror..."

"... or who, seizing upon a sporadic case of extreme oddity, some drunken, brawling wretch, have given a caricature to the world as a typical miner. The so-called literature that treats of the golden era is too extravagant in this direction. In all my personal experience in mining camps from 1849 to 1854 there was not a case of bloodshed, robbery, theft, or actual violence. I doubt if a more orderly society was ever known. How could it be otherwise? The pioneers were young, ardent, uncorrupted, most of them well educated and from the best families in the East. The early miner was ambitious, energetic and enterprising. No undertaking was too great to daunt him. The pluck and resources exhibited by him in attempting mighty projects with nothing but his courage and his brawny arms to carry them out were phenomenal. His generosity was profuse and his sympathy active, knowing no distinction of race. His sentiment that justice is sacred was never dulled. His services were at command to settle differences peacefully, or with pistol in hand to right a grievous wrong to a stranger. His capacity for self-government never has been surpassed. Of a glorious epoch, he was of a glorious race."

Wrote E. G. Waite, in the May Century Democratic Times, Jacksonville, May 8, 1891, from a collection of letters at "Life and Death on the Althouse." (The Althouse is a creek in Oregon.)