Peter and the momentous letter
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, December 2nd 2019
Peter Britt was heartbroken. Amalia,
his lovely “Madonna,” the neighbor girl he had loved and painted in countless
portraits since they were children, was officially engaged to someone else.
Her father had refused to let him marry
her.
He couldn’t bear to suffer this pain.
It was 1852, and there was free land in Oregon. Gold had just
been discovered,
and Peter was leaving.
 |
| Peter Britt |
He packed his wagon with a Colt pistol,
a double-barreled rifle-shotgun, food and other supplies, and 300 pounds of
photography equipment. He and three other men set out alone for Oregon Country.
For six months the companions continued
on — over the Continental Divide to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, then to Fort Hall,
Idaho, and finally arriving at Oregon City in October 1852. The men divided the
wagon into two carts and split up.
Peter headed south with a yoke of oxen
pulling a two-wheel cart loaded with supplies and his photo equipment. Other
than a mule, the clothes on his back and five dollars in his pocket, it was
everything he owned.
Coming around Blackwell Hill in
Southern
Oregon, Peter stopped in disbelief. The pointed peak of Mount
McLoughlin sparkled with white snow. There was a valley surrounded by grassy
hills and tall mountains covered in green pines. This looked like Obstalden,
the Swiss village where he had been born. The wandering 33-year-old bachelor had
finally found a home.
 |
| Mt. McLoughlin |
Peter camped on a brushy hill that
looked down on the shanties and tents that made up the mining camp of Table
Rock City, now Jacksonville. Over the next few days, he built a dugout cabin
home where he opened a makeshift photo studio.
Word spread quickly that a photographer
was in town. Miners posed proudly in their work clothes, holding picks, rifles,
pistols — anything to impress the folks back home.
Within a month of his arrival, it began
to snow, and a devastating winter began. The valley was isolated for weeks.
Food supplies dwindled, and without springtime sun, there was no hope. Peter,
in his typical frugal fashion, carefully managed his food until supply lines to
the outside world finally opened.
When the snows thawed in the spring of
1853, Peter began to dream of the “easy” prospecting money his customers kept
talking about. He closed the studio and with some other greenhorn miners took a
claim on Ashland Creek. After a week of wading in frigid water and rocking a
sluice box
Peter had what they called in the old
days hustle, always trying to find new ways to make a buck. His photography,
mining investments and packing business made Peter a wealthy man. He came to
town with just $5, but by 1857 his property holdings alone were worth in
today’s money nearly $100,000.
 |
| Peter Britt House |
He built a white frame house and
studio. The second house evolved into one even larger and fancier — and then,
an unexpected change.
A momentous letter came from Illinois
in 1861. Amalia, his sweetheart of long ago, was suddenly
a widow with a
7-year-old son. Peter asked her to come to Oregon and marry him.
 |
| Amalia Grob Britt |
Mother and child came around the Horn
of South America to Jacksonville, and on Aug. 11, 1861, Amalia and a
love-struck Peter were married.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories.
Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
