The Plaskett Family

More than a century on the Big Sur coast

Melville family

Henry Melville

Henry Melville's mining company office at Los Burros, c. 1889 — a board-and-batten cabin in the pines, men at the rail, a dog on the step.
Henry Melville's mining company office at Los Burros, c. 1889 — a board-and-batten cabin in the pines, men at the rail, a dog on the step.

Henry F. Melville came to the coast for the Los Burros gold at the height of the excitement, and stayed in the family’s stories for his strength.

A man of giant stature, he came upon two men robbing his cabin at Los Burros — one standing in the doorway keeping watch while his partner gathered the goods. Melville threw them both out bodily, and the story was still being told two generations later. His sons remembered a wagon loaded heavy with green wood that needed a wheel greased: when his son Lester went for the jack, Melville simply lifted the loaded wagon and held it while the work was done.

His mining company office at Los Burros — a board-and-batten cabin in the pines — survives in one of the family’s photographs of the vanished district, men at the rail and a dog on the step. Mabel Plaskett wrote his story for The Land in March 1960: “Henry Melville Attracted to Coast by Los Burros Gold.” The Melvilles lived close enough to Byron Plaskett’s mail trail to set their watches by him.

Stories
Photographs
Henry Melville's mining company office at Los Burros, c. 1889 — a board-and-batten cabin in the pines, men at the rail, a dog on the step.
Henry Melville's mining company office at Los Burros, c. 1889 — a board-and-batten cabin in the pines, men at the rail, a dog on the step.