Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets

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Title: Lola Montez in Grass Valley (PH 17-1)(Undated) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Pamphlets Catalog #: PH 17-1 Author: Doris Foley Published: Undated Subjects: Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree # of Pages: 40 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Metadata By: Shelby Figueroa Printed or handwritten: All printed text Date Scanned: 2024-12-11 14:16:41 Scanned By: Shelby Figueroa Scanning Equipment: CZUR Book Scanner OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: JPGs First Created: 2025-03-17 05:47:43 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:47:43

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 40  

a SoooddsedadsdddddddddddddddeelLiddd dd didldiddd ~~ eS te = ~eee . . The accompanying engraving we think may be relied on as correct. The sketch was taken on the spot and has been carefully engraved. As a feature of California life it will be interesting to our friends in the State and the East. The gentleman who took the sketch assures us that the representation of the bear in the engraving is a correct likeness of the beast that recently treated so ungratefully the hand that fed him. _ The animal certainly looks quite capable of such an atrocity and would probably be quite as unscrupulous in the gratification of his palate as any of his species.” — (From the “San Francisco Wide West,” July 1, 1854, Courtesy California Historical Society) the softness of woman’s grace.” This observation of Alonzo Delano’s is also a good description of the home Lola acquired in August, 1853. * A cross-section of the newspapers of that year indicates that Lola purchased a home in Grass Valley, for example: The Golden Era, August 21, 1853: “Lola Montez has purchased a homestead in Grass Valley, Nevada County, and intends to make it her future residence. Well done, after traveling the world over, to settle at last in a California Mining Town.” One paper that differed in its account was the very one located in the mostfavorable position for correct reporting, “The Grass Valley Telegraph!” It has Lola building rather than purchasing, in its December 15, 1853 issue: “Madam Lola Montez, who, after having traveled the world over, has wisely come to the conclusion that, as a private and romantic residence, a mountain home (in) Grass Valley has no superiors, and acting upon these convictions she has planned and erected one of the neatest little cottages in this country, in which she now resides in quiet and peaceful retixement.” The newspapers for the early mining camps were usually financed by outside capital. The Nevada Journal, in congratulating its neighboring town on the new publication, “The Grass Valley Telegraph,” made the following comment regarding the editor, J. Wing Oliver; “We have not the pleasure of Mr. Oliver’s acquaintance.” Oliver may also have been new to the area and it may have been that when the first issue of the Telegraph appeared, September .22, 1853, Lola was already established in her home. If he mistakenly stated in his December 15 issue that she had erected a house, it is a mistake that has been perpetuated through the years. The two volumes most relied upon by historians of Nevada Gounty are “Bean’s Directory, 1867,” and “Thompson 4nd West, 1880.” The authors of both’ publications depended to some extent on material from the early Nevada County newspapers and evidently used the Grass Valley editor’s item on Lola building her home. In direct contradiction to the Telegraph statement is a quote from a Grass Valley businessman, Jonas Winchester, in a letter to his wife on August 14, 1853, which is on file inthe California State Library.