Nov 21, 2024 - Sale 2687

Sale 2687 - Lot 54

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(CALIFORNIA.) Payroll book of Tuolumne County's Oaks Mine with signatures of Chinese laborers. [48] manuscript pages. Folio, 17¾ x 11¾ inches, original ½ calf over marbled boards, worn; some blanks detached but generally only minor wear to contents. Soulsbyville, CA, 1894-1896
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Additional Details

The Oaks Consolidated Mining Company, based in Soulsbyville, CA, was incorporated in 1894. This volume contains their monthly payrolls from September 1894 to September 1896, with names and positions of between 30 to 50 men every month, and their signatures. The foremen and most skilled craftsmen earned $4.00 per day, with miners earning $2.50. A few worked stayed for just a day or two and "skipped without settlement," such as "Italian (no name)" who worked two days as a trainman in February 1896.

The first Chinese employees show up in November 1894: a laborer named "Ah Hoon, Chinaman" and two blanketmen named Ah Moon and Ah Sam Leigh who worked the "canvas floor"; they were paid only $1.50 per day. Others joined the team over the coming months, always signing for their pay in Chinese. Ah Moon remained an employee through the end of the volume, having earned a raise to $1.60.