About The Trinity journal. [volume] (Weaverville, Trinity County, Cal.) 1856-1857
Weaverville, Trinity County, Cal. (1856-1857)

Trinity times, Trinity journal, and Weekly Trinity journal

The California Gold Rush was short lived, but its impact was profound and enduring. Between 1848 and the mid-1850s hundreds of thousands of people moved into the state in search of easily accessible gold deposits. Most of these "49ers" settled in the Sierra Nevada region near the border with Nevada, but there was also an influx of prospectors into the northern counties of Siskiyou, Shasta, and Trinity, particularly after gold was discovered in Yreka in 1851. Often considered a second gold rush, the lesser-known "northern" mines that sprung up in this region that extended into southern Oregon were more isolated and rugged than those in the Sierra Nevada "Mother Lode." Most of the camps associated with them were also short lived. Though gold mining remained a prominent part of the regional economy for decades, the rush had largely ended by the 1860s. Most settlements were abandoned and forgotten, and only a few cities survived into the latter part of the century.

California "mining newspapers," as they were called by early chronicler Helen Giffen, sprang up quickly in the comparatively few northern mining towns. Not only were they some of the earliest papers printed in the state, collectively they chronicled a region as it transitioned from often lawless and violent mining camps into more permanent settlements with organized governments and law enforcement. They also recorded the changing nature of mining and, as Giffen notes, "advocated mining and land reforms that were later written into California law."

Located at the foot of California's "Trinity Alps," Weaverville was established in 1850. Within a few years, it became the hub of gold mining activities in Trinity County. Readily-accessible "placer mines" were largely exhausted by the end of the decade, but "hydraulic mining" remained profitable through the 1960s. By one estimate, Weaverville was shipping nearly $1.5 million in gold annually by 1870. Throughout its early history, Weaverville had a notably large population of Chinese immigrants, more than 2,000 at its height. The "Joss House," a Taoist temple rebuilt in 1874 after one of the city's many fires, remains the oldest continuously used Chinese temple in California.

The first paper to appear in Weaverville was The Trinity Times, though, as the contemporary reporter Edward Kemble noted, "its career was far from successful." Established in December of 1854, The Trinity Times ceased publication in September of 1855. The initial editor E. Trask was succeeded by no fewer than seven other men in the paper's ten months of publication. In August of 1855, Henry J. Howe and M. T. Crawford had established the Weaverville Democrat with the purpose, according to Kemble, "to kill off the Times." There are no known surviving copies of the Weaverville Democrat. Their apparent mission accomplished, Howe and Crawford sold their operations to Henry J. Seaman and David E. Gordon, who established the Trinity Journal on January 26, 1856. Calvin B. McDonald was the editor. The weekly publication changed names to the Weekly Trinity Journal in February of 1857. The Trinity Journal has remained in publication under different names into the present century.

Provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA