Letters of an Artist in the Gold Rush
Edited by Frank Merriman Stanger
THE name of William H. Dougal deserves greater recognition in this state than it has hitherto received. This statement is ventured in spite of the fact that Dougal was in California only a year, and was never a California enthusiast. San Francisco fascinated him, but too prominent in his mind were the primitive city's mud, wind, and dust; and California's most potent charms could never quite overcome the pull of family, fiancee, and good business prospects back home.
But his year in California was packed with activity, and some of the ex- pressions of his versatile talents are only now coming to light.
An engraver by profession, he made a series of lithographs of scenes along the Sacramento River which were published after his return to the East in Ringgold's Series of Charts with Sailing Directions.^ Because of these litho- graphs he is mentioned (with some erroneous statements) in Peters' Cali- fornia on Stone.^
Dougal's most interesting work, however, consists of the letters printed here and pencil sketches made in and while en route to and from California. The sketches are of value not only because of their artistic excellence but more especially, from the historian's point of view, because of their faith- fulness to minute detail.
William Dougal was born in 1822 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was educated in the local Lancastrian school, and was afterward apprenticed to Sherman and Smith, prominent map engravers of that time in New York City. In his early twenties he established an office in Washington, D. C, and began doing engraving on contract for the United States Government and for various bank note companies. It was here and in this profession that most of his adult life was spent. Examples of his work are to be found in important government publications of his time, as well as in other books that feature especially fine engraving on copper and steel.
The California gold rush drew him away temporarily, but he was not of the type who "rushed" hysterically, for along with his artistic talents he had an eye to business. In the spring of 1849, with some "associates," among whom he appears to have been the principal entrepreneur, he purchased the barque GalindOy loaded her with an assortment of drugs, hardware, provisions, etc., and set sail with some ninety prospective gold miners for California.^
The log which he kept of the seven-months voyage* shows it to have been uneventful, except for severe cold and storms while rounding the Horn and
