Silver and Gold - Murphy's Camp

Murphy's Camp, Calaveras County, July 1853

Isaac Wallace Baker (1818-c.1862), Murphy's Camp, Calaveras County, July 1853, Quarter plate daguerreotype. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California, gift of anonymous donor

The town of Murphy's Camp is one of the best-known gold mining encampments of the "Southern Mines" region. The camp developed after June 1848, named for John M. Murphy, who had come from Canada in 1844 as part of the first immigrant party to bring wagons across the Sierras to Sutter's Fort.