Perfectly Out of Our Heads...

 

 

 

September 21st  Friday.  Up bright and early this A. M.  Cold and cloudy still.  Went after my team and drawed quarts all day and cleared $6.60 which is a little more encouraging.  Wind blew very hard carrying dust with it.

 

September 22nd Saturday.  I was sick all night but am all right this A. M.  Drawed quarts from the Calhoun Lode to Davis’es Mill.  John went down to the bob-Tail Lode in Gregory district to see about taking some specimens home, as he expects to start soon.  John had the ague when he got back.

 

September 23rd  Sunday.  Wind still blowing.  Several in cabin during the day.  I went down to the office without success, got a letter for John.  George wrote a letter to his wife.  I think it’s a grand thing not to have a “sally” to trouble a person while he is in the wilderness.  John agrees with me and George thinks we are perfectly out of our heads.  Better times past and I hope better coming.

 

September 27th  Thursday.  Cloudy most of the day.  Snowed hard on the range today and raind here. I drawed quarts from the Benton Lode cleared $7.00.  John  bought nine gallons of Molasses at $2.00 per gallon.  Bought a newspaper to send home which was printed at Denver City.  Evening beautiful, warm and pleasant.

 

September 30th  Sunday.  A beautiful day only a little too warm.  George and I went up on a high Mountain which is directly in front of our cabin where we had a fine view of the plains and Snowy Range,  Clear Creek and the Village of Idaho.  Got back very tired and not at all contented.

 

October 1st  Monday. A beautiful A. M. for the first of the month and being in the Rocky Mountains where the weather can change in five minutes from better to worse.  John is travling over the Mountains to find something that there can be something made at. October 2nd  Tuesday.  John and I started to make our fortuns today... or rather to discover a new Lode.   We are on the side of the Montain above Missouri City and dug all day without finding anything and then returned home concluding to try another day.  We fixed up the cabin  I wrote a letter home and retired.  Cloudy.  Hailed, raind, snowed, and thundered.

 

October 4th Thursday.  Wind blows extra hard and continued to all day.  P. M.  I did not do much of anything but run around and see what is going on which is not much of any thing but work.  Read a little during the evening.  I am just about give out tonight.

 

October 7th  Sunday.  A splendid day.  If I could be at home this A. M.  I think I could enjoy myself more than it is possible to do out here for churches, good society, and morals are strangers to this country.  Every body came out here to make mony therefore Sunday is the business day.  Stores are open, Mills are clashing away pounding out the dust and the gulches are lind with men running the dirt through the sluces and this is  the way we get our mony.   I went over to the office as usual I got no letters.  I read most of the day.

 

 

Betsy Buck discovered Hawley’s original diary in the library of the Colorado Historical Society in Denver.

 

Henry James Hawley

1839 - 1923