[[1]]
Georgetown
Colorado
Aug[ust] 5 / [18]77
Dearest wife *1
I wrote last (my 6th America letter from Denvers[sic], on the 2nd of this month.
I hope you have got all of the six).
We left Denver 4 days ago by rail for this valley of the Rocky Mts which is very
lofty & rocky & literally riddled with silver mines which are very productive,
besides which are innumerable gold washings.
Nothing in America has appeared to me so remarkable as the way the Anglo-Saxon has pushed his way into these mountains which were infected a few
years ago with hostile savages & covered with Buffalo of neither of which
except bones of the latter have we seen
[[2]] Here in this city! of wooden cabins inhabited chiefly by miners, are no end
of large Churches, shops of all kind of luxuries; you hire phaetons with
splendid horses & harness to drive literally hundreds of miles by fair roads
amongst the mountains over passes ridges & plains never below 5000 ft &
often over 10,000 ft. Wages are high, provisions dear but most abundant. This
morning I went to see an inventors instrument for making water boil by suns
rays & hearing music hard by I walked over some house roofs & got in
through a window into a music hall about 80 ft square with a gallery of
numbered seats, where a band of amateurs was practicing. --The Chief
Justice of the place was sawing away at the Violoncello -- then there was a
pianist cornopean, 2 violins, cornet & piston French horn & trombone --they
played some delicious Russian Mazourka[sic] &
[[3]] Waltzes -- We are in a most clean & comfortable boarding house. I am
writing in my bed--room. It is Sunday & a X *2 is 5 yards from my window & I
hear all that goes on; music is in the ascendant I cannot say much for the
voices!
Colorado has only been admitted as a "state" within a very short period & is
now governed by its own state laws: up till now it has been a "territory" & its
laws administered (or supposed to be) by the Central Gov[ernmen]t of the U.S
which means that the territory is allowed to take care of itself & no questions
are asked as to how criminals are punished & how laws are evaded. Still bad
as such a state of law is the necessity for security to life & property
compells[sic] the better--disposed to see that order is kept by lynching the
incorrigeable[sic] & so forth -- Here at this little town at the extreme finger end
of civilization the streets are watered better than at Kew; people sleep without
locks to the doors, the fire engines are well manned & in capital
[[4]] & of food there is no end, though its in too high to raise vegetables or any
Garden produce! -- all is brought up -- by train from Denver to within a few
miles of the city.
The small pox has been raging in a neighbouring mining village i.e. city to this, &
the authorities sent the beds & beddings of the sick to the capital city (about
50 houses) to be stored there for the casual poor; the citizens sent a vigorous
remonstrance to the said authorities who pay paid no heed upon which they
coolly set fire to the building --the alarm bells were rung & the fire brigade
refused to turn out & so infection was stamped out by "lynch law"! This is the
sort of way matters go on, quite illegally but in the right direction & in the
interests of the community. I fear that as rega[r]ds law & justice the U.S are
most corrupt & always will be so for so long as the offices are all given by
political patronage change hand with every new president. We leave this in
the afternoon & go to Denver for the night, leaving it at 7 tomorrow for Uta[h]
& the Salt Lake
[[5]] whence we go to California. I have already got my large collection of
plants & much information but it is very hard work indeed. I am never in bed
till midnight & up at 5 or 6. We have not suffered seriously from heat but the
dus dust & dirt are horrible in the railway & in driving or riding. The weather is
hottish dry & clear at these elevations -- Georgetown is 8400 f[ee]t .
Now dearest I must close. I do long to see you again & stroke your face I am
anxious to be back as ever you can be--& begin to count the days--I am also
most anxious to hear of you & Willy Charlie & Brian*3 We suppose that the
letters are gone to Cheyenne on the Union Pacific Line where we shall be
tomorrow on our route to Uta[h]. I wonder so much what you are about &
where you are & what is going on at Kew. With much love & r[e]ga[r]ds to all
who know me
Ever y[ou]r most aff[ectionate] hu[s]b[a]nd
JD Hooker. [signature]
ENDNOTES
1. Lady Hyacinth Hooker, née Symonds then Jardine (1842--1921). Joseph
Hooker's second wife, they married in 1876.
2. Hooker uses 'X' as shorthand for church.
3. Joseph Hooker's sons William Henslow Hooker, Charles Paget Hooker and
Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker respectively.
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