- Category: Books
- Catalog No: BK0005
- Title: The Diary of Charles Emerson
- Compiled By: Jayna Hooper with Larry Cote and the Newport Historical Society
- Published: Produced in 2021 by the Newport Historical Society
- Pages: 116
- Book Dimensions: 8-3/8″ x 10-3/4″
- Price: $14.00
“The diary of Charles Emerson offers an insider’s view into how one Newport son survived his adventure as a California gold-seeker in the years 1852 and 1853. Emerson’s stoic, dispassionate journal entries create a picture of a man well-composed, not easily shaken, and certainly one who knew what he was getting into when he resolved to sail to the west coast gold fields.
The California Gold Rush (1848-1855) was a defining epoch in American history. Yet, readers of the Emerson diary will be compelled (somewhat ironically) by its taciturn prose to confront the fact that there is much more to know about the Gold Rush – the glory and the terror alike – than perhaps they had ever before considered possible to know.
Indeed, for Emerson and his fellow gold-seekers, the mission was literally do or die.”
Jayna Huot Hooper