J. Goldsborough Bruff

J. Goldsborough Bruff was born in DC and worked for the U.S. Bureau of Topographical Engineers as a cartographer. In 1849, he joined the California Gold Rush, and was captain of the Washington City and California Mining and Wagon Company. The extensive journals and sketchbooks he kept during the 1840s and 1850s, as he travelled through mining camps, were published posthumously in two volumes, called Gold Rush (1944), considered by many historians to be the best source of information on the subject.

He returned to DC in 1853, working as supervising architect of the U.S. Treasury Department. He is buried in Congressional Cemetery.