Barbara Eastman (1897-1986): Prolific Chronicler of Tuolomne County

Main Mausoleum

Barbara Eastman was a meticulous local historian whose life’s work helped cement the documentary record of Columbia and greater Tuolumne County. Beginning around 1950—sparked by a visit to the newly established Columbia State Historic Park to research one of her husband’s relatives—Eastman forged collaborations with park curators and county archivist Carlo De Ferrari, setting off decades of collecting, indexing, and writing. 

Over more than twenty-five years, Eastman compiled an extraordinary private research trove: thousands of typed notes, transcripts, and subject files on Gold Rush–era people, places, and institutions. A representative portion of this work survives as the “Barbara Eastman collection concerning Columbia and Tuolumne County” at The Bancroft Library (BANC MSS C-R 76), which includes typescript notes and a Columbia Registry of Deaths. Her broader files are dispersed today among regional repositories—including Columbia State Historic Park and the Tuolumne County Historical Society (TCHS), whose catalogs and programs continue to feature the “Barbara Eastman Collection.”

Yearbook photo

Eastman also recorded oral histories and appeared as an interviewee for Columbia College’s Oral History Series, discussing topics such as the “History of Springfield,” the Tuolumne County Water Company, and the “Uniqueness of Columbia.” These recordings and indexes underscore her role as both source and synthesizer of community memory.

Eastman’s careful notes on water systems—especially the Tuolumne County Water Company—continue to inform professional historical studies and environmental reviews; modern reports explicitly credit her Columbia SHP–archived research for detailing the system’s 19th-century development. Her writings reached the public through Chispa, the quarterly of TCHS. Among her contributions is “The Story of the Columbia Schools,” an early example of how she wove fragmentary records into readable local history.  

You can listen to Barbara Eastman HERE talking about some of the history that she compiled. 

Sources: Bancroft Library, Tuolumne County Historical Society, Tuolumne Utility District, Columbia College Library, Find a Grave