Daniel B. Woods

Born in 1809, Daniel B. Woods is best known for Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings, a memoir drawn from his own experiences during the California Gold Rush. Contemporary library and archival records identify him as Daniel Bates Woods and describe him as a Philadelphian who set out for California in February 1849, reaching San Francisco that June after crossing Mexico.

He spent about sixteen months in and around the gold fields, including camps on the American River and Hart's Bar, before returning east. Published in 1851, his account is valued for the way it captures both the excitement and the strain of gold-rush life, from travel and rough camp conditions to the daily gamble of mining.

Woods died in 1892. Though little else is widely documented about his life, his book endures as a lively, personal record of one of the most dramatic migrations in American history.