John Chaffee and Jason Chamberlain
John Chaffee and Jason Chamberlain were gold miners in California who lived together for over 50 years. Referred to as the "wedded bachelors", they are a well-documented example in early American history of a male same-sex couple living in a relationship similar to marriage. There is some evidence they were the inspiration for Bret Hart's gold rush era story Tennessee's Partner and they are part of the local lore of Tuolumne county where they lived. Life Jason Palmer Chamberlain was born in 1821 in Windsor County, Vermont and lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut during his childhood and early adulthood, working as a carpenter. In Worcester, Massachusetts, he met John Amos Chaffee who worked there as a wheelwright. John was two years younger, born in 1823 in Woodstock, Connecticut. On January 24, 1849, Chaffee and Chamberlain left Boston together. Their 176-day trip aboard the Capitol brought them around South America's Cape Horn to San Francisco. At the height of the gold rush, San Francisco was experiencing an unprecedented population and economic boom; upon arriving in the city, they both found jobs that paid 7 times their equivalent jobs on the east coast. Despite the stable jobs and good pay, they left