The Rock

In addition to his daily entries in his diaries, Alf Doten also wrote a regular column in the form of letters to his home town newspaper, The Plymouth Rock, summarizing his Western experiences for Massachusetts readers. He began this practice in 1854 when he was mining in Calaveras County, California and ended it in 1867 when he was working long hours as a reporter for local papers in Virginia City and journalism had become his profession. He published a total of 93 letters that began “Dear Rock.” Eighty of the letters originated in California, with 13 from Nevada. After his first 50 letters, Doten began numbering a “new series,” beginning with NS1 and ending with NS43.0. He saved the clippings for 81 of the letters, and for the rest, he saved his handwritten drafts. Two photostat copies of missing clippings were added to the collection later. The letters were transcribed during the process of editing Doten’s journals for publication in the 1960s, and Walter Van Tilburg Clark included 42 of them in their entirety within the three-volume publication. For most of the rest, Clark included summaries or partial transcriptions. We now present a complete and searchable archive of the entire collection of transcripts of Doten’s letters to The Plymouth Rock, alongside the clippings or handwritten originals. Our assistant Challen Wright digitized the clippings and prepared the transcripts for the project. We hope this online collection will be useful to researchers of the West as the region unfolded during a pivotal time.

Rockns30 No. XXXMilpitas, Santa Clara Co., Cal., June 11th 1863“Moving on” Dear Memorial and Rock:-- Having just returned from a trip to San Francisco, I will give you a few notes on what I saw there. I found it the same bustling, noisy, rushing city as ever, and not having been there for some six months, I could not but note the improvements which had been brought about in that short space of time. Many splendid buildings had been erected including one or two first class hotels, fine, large, elegant, stone buildings. Then through all the principal streets, tracks are laid, and every few minutes the...
Rockns32 California Correspondence.No. XXXIIComo, Palmyra District, N. T.,Sept. 14, 1863 EDS. MEMORIAL & ROCK:- Since my last letter, the machinery and material for the first mill in this District has arrived, and is now in process of erection. The work is being hurried forward just as fast as the energetic application of unlimited capital will admit of, and in less than two months from now, we expect the mill to start, crushing the rich rock. Other mills will soon be erected here, but this is the one that will tell the most important story - the richness or poverty of the District. It took some...
Rockns39 Nevada Correspondence.No. XXXIX.Virginia, Nev. July 11th, 1865. Eds. Memorial and Rock:-- The Glorious Fourth Has come and gone, but in the hurry and bustle consequent on the preparations for and celebration of that grand national day, I came near forgetting you, but you see I have not. We celebrated the day here with far more than usual spirit in every sense of the word, as is shown by the records of the police court the next day, although the officers were as lenient as their conscience would allow, and took none to the station house except those who were disorderly as well as very drunk....
Rockns41 Nevada Correspondence.No. XLI.Virginia, Nev., April 19, 1866. Editor Memorial and Rock: April Fool Day. Being the last great holiday observed here, in this land of sage-brush and silver ledges, except Sundays, which are always celebrated in a great measure as such, among all Christian nations, I will speak of, by way of commencement to my letter. Not because it was the commencement of the month, particularly, or that I should have commenced this letter long before that date; but because I saw more people made "April fools" of by means of all sorts of foolish devices on that occasion, than I...
Rockns42 Nevada Correspondence.No. XLII.Virginia, Nev. May, 13, 1867. Editor Memorial and Rock:-- Time rolls on; and the days, months, and years, like so many chips, still go ever floating onward, ceaselessly borne on the bosom of the great broad tide which empties into the illimitable sea of eternity. The mighty Mississippi still pours its vast volume of many stenched waters into the blue Atlantic, Hobbs' Hole Brook and Eel River continue to contribute their aqueous torrents towards the general good and welfare of this mundane world, as they did in ages past, when ye gentle savage roamed...
Rockns43 Nevada Correspondence.No. XLIII.Virignia, Nev., July 22, 1867. Editor Memorial and Rock: The Glorious Fourth came and went at the usual time, and was generally observed throughout that portion of the Pacific coast included in Uncle Samuel's farm, after the good old style. Tons of gunpowder, ship loads of fire crackers, rockets, and all that sort of thing were destroyed, and noise, patriotism, "marching through Georgia" and general hilarity was the order of the day. In fact as far as this city was concerned, the way some fellows "swung round the circle," and kept on "marching through Georgia"...

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