J.D. Borthwick

Artist J.D. Borthwick, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, was living in New York City in May of 1851 when he found himself suddenly "seized with the California fever." Although the most sensational accounts of the gold discoveries in the west had already begun to subside, he immediately embarked on a small ship and made his journey to California by way of Panama.

Borthwick would spend three years prospecting at various digging grounds in the California mining country. Upon his return to Scotland in 1857, he published a memoir of his adventures,Three Years in California. Borthwick illustrated the book with eight of his own lithographs, and he focused much of his attention on the customs and social life of the mining locale. In the following selection, Borthwick describes the administration of Lynch Law, the prevailing form of justice on the...