[This is the story of three brothers of my great-great grandmother who went to California for the Gold Rush and back again. It was published in the Weldon (Illinois) Record in 1905. It is an amalgam of reminiscences of all three brothers, not of any particular one. The copy I have was typed by someone, probably my grandmother, from the original – there are some obvious transcription mistakes, others could have been in the original. I have made some comments and obvious corrections in square brackets. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.]
There was a boat landing on the [Sacramento] river, near Sutter’s fort about fifty miles from here they call Bardadaw [? — I can’t find any other reference to this.] The next evening about sundown we started. We walked all night and got to Sutter’s fort next morning about ten o’clock. We were then within two miles of [Sacramento], California. Our mules were thin. We could walk as long and as far as they could. [Charley] Miller walked down to the city. He sent word back for us to come down that he had met some of his old friends. We left his mules on the grass at the fort.
Sacramento in 1850
When we got down near the river we saw hundreds of tents scattered over where [Sacramento] now stands. I took care of the mules. It was 83 days since we left St. Joe Mo. John went down to see what we could get to do. He came back in about half an hour and said he had hired out for two of us at 10 dollars per day for each and board, and for us to come down and get our dinner and go to work. We were to work for two men who were keeping a store in a tent. They wanted to put up a store, a frame building. Our work was to saw off block to use as a foundation for the corners and carry lumber to the carpenters. This was the third frame house put up. They had bought the frame of a boat and paid 900 dollars for it. It was framed in [Oregon]. There were about 600 houses made out of canvas. There was a great deal of business. More goods [getting] landed every day. Gold seekers were [coming] in by land and sea. Each day you [could] see the place was bigger [than] the day before.
About this time someone was heard to say [Sacramento] city. In the evening our employers said they wanted a well dug. We dug the first well in the city. We could take it by the job, three dollars per foot or ten dollars a day. We took it by the job and in two and one half days had made $60. This was about Aug. 10th. The afternoon of the second day the other boys came over the Carson river route. We were very glad to see them. They had a very hard time. Their mules had [given] out on the desert. They had to leave their pack and get the mules down to the river. When they went back the Indians had taken every thing except one gun. Next day we got a skiff and crossed the river to take a hunt. We saw three deer and shot two of them. The next day we bought provisions and started for the mines.
We had plenty of fresh venison, beans, coffee, flour and pork. Flour was about ten cents a pound. We started for Deer creek 95 miles away, but stopped about half way and dug gold for three days. The first place we tried was a good place to work. The first pan of dirt was good. We bought pans and washed it out. Mark made 70 dollars the first day. We went on up to Deer creek. We struck places where we could make $16 apiece. An ounce a day we called it.
We stayed three weeks. They sent me back for provisions to [Sacramento] with four mules. I packed three and rode one. It was a long lone some trip camping alone. I started back, took the packs off the mules to camp at night and rolled in a quilt and turned the mules loose. A coyote came up and gnawed one of the straps that held the meat. The tracks were within three [feet] of where I lay that night. I ate baked beans dipped in vinegar that night for supper. Heard wild cattle bellowing and a grizzly bear might happen along any time.
About November we left Deer creek camp. We were afraid the snow would be too deep for us to work there [during] the winter. We went east from [Sacramento] to a place called [Placerville]. We took up 1100 pounds of provisions. After the rainy season set in we could not get provisions up there. Jonathan was a good deer hunter. We could get $1.25 a pound for any kind of provision that we could spare. We took a boarder by the name of Coldie, from St. Louis, at 16 dollars a week. We camped for two weeks until we could build our shanty, then we were comfortable. John and I dug gold and Jonathan hunted.
Placerville, c 1849 (Kuchel and Dresel)
Things went on as you might expect in the mines. The next summer John got tired of digging and went down and hired a ranchman for $260 a month and board. There was a Mormon boy by the name of Scofield working for the ranchman. They spent most of the time in romping [?]. There was a pool of water near and they practiced diving. This practice served of great service to him as on the way home he fell into the sea, in climbing up the ladder to get on the ship. He was loaded heavily with a belt of gold around his waist. He was able to come to the surface on the other side of the ship. The sailors picked him up and called him their “little diver.” But Kipling says, “that is another part of the story and we will go back to the bears.”
One day on the ranch two horses got away down the valley. He thought he saw them two hundred yards away. He started after them. When he got near he saw they were grizzly bears. They reared upon their hind legs and showed their teeth. He said his legs felt like [running] and he let them run. I asked him if they followed him and he [said] he did not take time to look.
Hunting was good. Jonathan was a fine shot. He and another man would go out hunting for a week at a time. They killed a panther once. The men said it was good eating and they cooked some [for] Bill Powell (a man from Shawnee). They gave him some and did not tell him what it was until he had eaten it. When they told him he went out and tried to throw it up.
Bill and Jonathan went out in the mountains to hunt deer. Jonathan went around one way and left Bill at a certain place to run the deer. Where Bill was there was a thick chaparral about as high as your head, and there would be little open spaces in it. Powell heard something coming through the brush, and he thought the deer were coming. When it came into the opening about 15 steps from him it was a grizzly bear. Instead of shooting he ran down over the mountain, jumping over the brush and his hat fell off. He drew up and pulled the trigger but the cap of his gun was gone and it failed to go off. The bear came right on and wasn’t after Bill at all. It was as frightened as Bill was. Jonathan came over to him and laughed at him. Bill was very much ashamed that he had run. He said if anyone had told him he would have run from a grizzly bear he would have called them a liar.
The trip home
About the 1st of February, 1851, I and Mark had an attack of lung fever. The Dr. said I would have to leave there or I would die. Cyrus Insley (from Indiana) was working with us. He was coming home. We went to [Sacramento] and from there we took a steamer to San Francisco. Then we took an old ship called the Isthmus of Panama. We saw whale, porpoises and flying fish. A heavy wind blew us about 200 miles from the coast so we did not get to see the volcano that we had expected to see. I did not get sea sick and my health improved from the time I got aboard the ship.
San Francisco, 1849 (Granger lithograph)
We stopped at [Acapulco] Mexico, to take on coal. We ran down to Panama, and anchored about 3 miles from the wharf. We went ashore and stayed all night. We put up at a hotel and had pretty good living. Next morning was Sunday. We saw Catholics going to church. There were several Churches. Insley and I went to three of them. There were no benches or seats. There were from the blackest kind of negroes to the white and finest dressed ladies of the churches. The ladies would spread their handkerchiefs on the ground and sit on them, as there were no floors in the churches.
Monday we started to cross the Isthmus. We walked to [Chagres] river. There were a great many going across, some walking and some riding mules. We took boat at Maxico [?] and took dinner; had fried chicken, the first I had tasted since I left home. We then went down to the wharf to see about getting passage on a ship. There were six ships waiting to get passengers. We met four sailors who wanted to get passengers for their ship. They were working against each other knocking the price down. There were four of us together and they offered to take us for 15 dollars each as cabin passengers to New Orleans.
Chagres River, Panama, today (Omar Upegui R.)
They furnished us the very best living. They gave us four meals a day. The captain offered to give us lunch at nine o’clock at night but nobody cared for it. We stopped at Kingston, Jamaica, to take on coal. Two men got on there to go to New Orleans and they charged them each $8. We had a very pleasant voyage. No winds or high waves. The captain said it was the finest weather he had ever crossed the Gulf.
We got to the delta of the Mississippi river and tug boats came out to meet us to take us up the Narrows. There was a ship ahead of us that got aground. Our ship passed within a few feet of it but got through alright. When we got into the Mississippi our ship sank about three feet in the fresh water. When we reached New Orleans we put up at the veranda, the best kind [of hotel] in the city at that time. We took a steamboat up the Mississippi to Evansville, on the Ohio. Here we took a steamboat up the Wabash to Attica. Then out to Shawnee Mound my home. I was gone two years. This was written entirely from memory, none of them had kept a diary of any description.
[Addendum: After returning to the Midwest from California, Jonathan married and set out with his family to Oregon. They stopped to repair their wagon near what is now Helena, Montana, and decided to stay. They were the first permanent settlers in what is now called, appropriately enough, Lewis and Clark County. Mark, who was the one who became sick and returned to Indiana in 1851, eventually moved to Muscatine, Iowa, where he was a successful produce farmer. John returned to Indiana and married. He first wife died in 1871, and he returned to California in 1886, settling in Fresno County, where he married again and contributed to the early development there.]
John Nixon Manlove
I liked living in Fresno. So, good choice there.
These are fun, as I lived in that area for so long.
Fres-yes.
Great stuff whiz, thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome! It was fun putting it together.
I read it in the voice of Claymation Captain Stormfield:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unmQl3wK83M
Awesome stuff. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
So that is how Manlove gott to San Francisco.
Boooo!
Carrying over the 3 Body Problem discussion from the dead thread:
Just started watching the Amazon Chinese version – completely different vibe than the oh-so-Hollywood-special-effects-intensive American one.
And 30 episodes for the Chinese version version 8 for the American one.
Both good – like watching the popular versus literary fiction adaptations.
Great story. I may have related this before, but I was always told that my grandfather and his older brother, during their high school summer break (one was about to be a senior, the other a junior in the fall) stole a car in Wilmington, OH. They drove it to NYC, got jobs and a place to stay, and basically spent all summer drinking, working, and partying. Once about August rolled around, they stole another and drove back home to Ohio for the start of school.
A great video from a Seattle journalist who got fired for criticizing the local statue of Lenin. His objection stemmed in part from the fact that the Soviet regime killed some of his relatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP1T5_zzOUc
So now I’m drinking $3 wine out of a plastic Florida Department of Corrections cup I got at a job fair. It seems fitting.
I’ve been chatting up a different woman from Jacksonville this evening, and she’s open to meeting in person there or in Lake City. We’re really hitting it off. Oddly, she just now asked me to download Telegram, that damn Russian encrypted messaging ap. Is there a little Russia in Jacksonville or what?
Whatever, coffee with an undercover SVR agent? Fine. I’m not breaking the law if I did it unknowingly.
Q: So are you into Russian women?
A: Well, not quite as often as I’d like.
I might just send in a tip to the FBI. I don’t like them, but they did come to visit me in July and ask about my experimental computer. Seeing them flash their badges was cool. They also listened politely to my tale of woe, complete with visual aids such as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egj-9eO81a0
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values.
[Benny Hill salute]
If my tip leads to the capture of a Russian spy ring, maybe *that* will get me a full-time job somewhere.
If you want to climb smokestacks, work outside in all sorts of weather, and apply what chemistry and physics you learned in high school……I’ll hire you.
Clearly, you have the math skills necessary.
I like having a back-up plan. Here’s my email: harty.thomas@gmail.com
Thanks for the offer. Hopefully, I’ll find a local job soon.
I bet it’s the Cubans that brings them here. Cubans and Russians are like stink and shit.
***
Alexander Poteyev was a former colonel in Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) who shared state secrets that helped U.S. authorities bust a deep-cover Russian spy ring known as “the illegals” in 2010.
Poteyev fled to the U.S. days before the FBI arrested the spy ring, and Russia in 2011 sentenced him in absentia to 25 years in prison for treason.
According to NYT, Russia in 2019 recruited Mexican scientist Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes to locate Poteyev in Miami Beach, Florida, where the double agent had settled.
The clandestine operation crossed Russia’s previously avoided line of targeting a U.S. informant on American soil, the newspaper wrote.
***
This was fun, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t do the math, did they end up making a lot of money? Sounds like they did ok but had to get home before long.
They don’t give enough details to know for sure, but the fact that they were hiring other people indicates to me that they did OK.
Yeah, I’m having trouble with the money! Flour was 10 cents a pound? That’s more expensive than I’da guessed.
Looked: Kroger 32 oz flour: $1.69.
Hrm. One pound for 85 cents… Something about this seems mighty amiss, and current inflation has little to do with it. Another something amiss: My knowledge and inability to be intelligent when it comes to many things.
The inflation calculator I use only goes back to 1913, though prices a few years and even decades before then were similar. $1 in 1913 is the same as about $30 today. The current CPI omits food and fuel, so factoring in that could lessen the difference between a factor of 30 and a factor of 8. In fairness, the prices of food and fuel are volatile.
Hard as it might be to believe, gasoline is cheaper today than it’s ever been thanks to technological improvements.
***
In 1978, the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $0.652. Adjusted for inflation to 2022 dollars, this amounts to approximately $4.37 per gallon.
***
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10641
For a very, very long time, one silver dollar was one dollar. There’s a physical limit to how much money the government can stamp out in any given year. So, there was no issue with FedGov dumping mountains of cash into the economy. Thus commodity pricing was “reasonably” stable in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Example of my intellect going AWOL: *Slaps forehead* I’m a youngin’…but I remember money used to be something real, or stand in for something of actual physical value.
I’m going to play some Warcraft II to remind me of how things USED to be.
In those days, supply and demand would have driven commodity pricing up and down as the market did its magic.
More limited that money printer go brrr but that was what the free silver folks wanted- expansionary monetary policy until gold became the sole standard.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1873
yeah. I’m not an expert in this stuff. But there was no dumping a quarter or a third of the GDP into the economy in one year using fiat currency.
Even Bryan would be howling about a Cross of Debt if he could see modern days.
Don’t forget, they were on the other side of the world, as far as Indiana was concerned. There was little infrastructure, so a flour mill was not the most common thing, and I am not too sure where the nearest wheat was grown in quantity at that time.
So, flour wasn’t cheap.
Probably some elsewhere in California from earlier settlers and Spanish colonization.
Interesting tidbit of market response: https://www.sacramentohistory.org/search.php?imageid=1120
0 mills before 1840 to 6 in 1852.
In the ~1840s-50s, I wouldn’t call Indiana ‘the other side of the world.’ Indiana became a state in 1816 and was at least east of the Miss. Flour was certainly valuable. Warranting massive production in the plains. It’s a spectacular stretch of productive land. Tornadoes aren’t fun, but Oz was great.
Given my time machine, it’d be a great place to hang out with Doc Brown, dressed ‘proper’ and all. A boy can dream. (Mom is now an interpreter at Conner Prairie, where it’s 1836. It’s a well-done place. My parents have nearly opposite interests, other than history –> Yay! Ev.
)
Just because they didn’t have fiat currency didn’t mean there wasn’t inflation. The miners were bringing in so much gold that the local money supply exploded, with predictable results.
Thanks Whiz, great story. Hard to understand how tough our ancestors really were.
I was in Sacramento for a few months in 1957. I thought it was beautiful. I even thought I might retire there, in that area anyway. Didn’t work out that way.
I just wanted to pop in for a minute and say how much I enjoyed this story!
RJ. RJ. Sit your ass down.
When your bitch burp you smell my balls in the air.
You can’t leave me here to talk to Tres.
I am here. Finished work, cleaned the car, ready for a couple of days on-site with associates. I’ll be beat on Thursday.
My excellence confuses you.
My excitement cannot be contained, sir! You might get some empty trash bags to protect your good garments!
Thanks, R.J. I may poke around and try to get some more info on them and post a follow-up (no promises).
“We took a steamboat up the Mississippi to Evansville, on the Ohio.”
Let me tell ya sumptin’, right-cha’here…*SWOON* (Not really for Ev in the Eville.) When I saw the map in Part I, I thought Eville MUST be coming up. (Somehow?) I saw something that hinted otherwise. I’m having much fun with this account. The Indian encounter here is fascinating, but first (and smallest!):
The AP-ish-style is endearing and helps. I enjoy ‘seeing’ the day-to-day of regular folk in, even back then a fierce struggle from all sides. I’m especially curious about the semi-acceptance of the Indians, especially them taking everything “except one gun.” I assume it was to leave *something* to hunt…but the semi-truce and acceptance between them is off-kilter. The Indiana didn’t to leave these folk *completely* helpless, I ‘spose. But leaving them a gun when you rob them of everything else?
Bold move. It seems it more-or-less worked. Humans be human.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Our behavior reflects it, quirky relationships perhaps most.
This is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing it. Do you happen to have any pictures from/of the paper itself? I highly doubt there are any pictures of their story, but it would help prod thoughts of the set and setting of the era.
I’ll flush my toilet in their honor to reveal my pussitude. (I think I’d have done well, in my own way. Proudly confident.)
Nothing from the original. I did look for the original article on newspapers.com, but they didn’t have that issue.
Terence McKenna spent his life getting high on hallucinogens and having sex with hot, stupid coeds after filling their heads with crazy theories about time travel and sentient machine elves. And he did it in Hawaii.
Here he is for 6 hours with Art Bell.
Art Bell.
How many times are you going to paste the link, you slack-jawed, meat-slapper ?
Supposedly, women are only slightly more likely than men to believe in astrology (30% vs 25%). Not sure about other pseudoscience, though I have noticed many women speaking English to dogs like they are children. There are some surprisingly smart dogs, but none of them can talk or understand language like a human. On the other, other hand, the plethora of dick pills I see in convenience stores across this great land of ours proves that the business of swindling dumb men out of their money will never end.
On the other, other, other hand, men have been in charge of Scientific American for decades, but a woman wrote this nonsense:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pseudoscience-has-long-been-used-to-oppress-transgender-people/
[Kif sigh]
Compare this to today where they take push where we have seen a large number of cases where the individuals who transitioned expressed regret. Or studies look at their rates of self-harm along with criminality (a perfectly reasonable measure of whether the process is a success, if you ask me).
In the 50’s and 60’s they weren’t trying to transition large numbers of gay and even straight children who have no good fucking reason to be going through the process.
Yes, a girl who is attracted to boys has no earthly fucking reason to transition into a man. Yet this shit happens. It exists. It’s signed off on by mainstream academia now. And then when the little shit attempts suicide and other forms of self-harm because they didn’t find the magical happiness tree at the end of the rainbow road, the doctors who helped transition them are nowhere to be seen. The activists aren’t there, either. I’ve seen that example play out in real life from a distance, thankfully.
Gender dysphoria is a real phenomenon. It is highly rare and supply does not meet demand for the activists. Comparing the rare treatment provided in the past to grown fucking adults is just disingenuous bullshit.
Your point in the form of song, from Steven Crowder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcUJgbWrM64
Speaking of Crowder, his e-drama continues to pile up.
It’s funny. Not mentioned in the article is that Jared “Monroe” is launching two new shows online.
SO while supposedly subject to a NDA, he put Crowder on blast with a ridiculously thinly veiled attack after months of leaking shit to the media. He supposedly is restrained by a NDA that he just blatantly violated publicly.
I liked Jared, but I smell a rat. Stirring up e-drama to build his brand (which is apparently what he’s been doing since leaving Crowder – helping people build their social media brands online).
For girls, at least, it should be treated like an eating disorder.
I’ve before listed all the reasons I think girls would go for FtM, but I think a large part of it boils down to “you can’t be a girl and like boy things” and/or “you can’t be a girl and like girls.” iT’s NoT dOnE!
“…sentenced him in absentia to 25 years in prison for treason.”
I know its Russia (or any other country), but in the US can a person be tried, found guilty, and sentenced in absentia?
Short answer, yes.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_43
***
(2) Misdemeanor Offense. The offense is punishable by fine or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, and with the defendant’s written consent, the court permits arraignment, plea, trial, and sentencing to occur by video teleconferencing or in the defendant’s absence.
***
Coming to a Trump trial soon!
Great story whiz!
Thanks
Interesting story. The return to the original area was not uncommon. Even European immigrants often gave up in the US and returned to Europe. Many studies show up to 30% gave up in less than a decade and departed the US. My own family had the original Italian immigrant return to Italy “to fight for his country” during WWI. Not a wise choice since he was dead in less than 24 hours after arriving at the front. Shortly after the war his younger brother, my great grandfather, came to the US with his two eldest sons- one of which was my grandfather.
Good morning, you (lovable) weirdos.
I’m feeling lucky today 🎰🌞.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzuDXZwZtI
🎶🎶
Mornin’ Sean
…and good morning, Beau!
And to you as well GT!
Good morning, Sean! Glad you’re feeling lucky. I’m feeling…a little yucky – either a cold or bad allergies, but my nose has been stuffed up and runny. Luckily, I can afford to take a day off, so I will. 🤧
I had to call out sick today for different reasons.
My yesterday ended poorly… 😧🤢🤮
Oh, dear! I’m REALLY sorry to hear about that! (I’d much rather have a cold!) Hope you feel better ASAP! 😟
Thanks
I probably need a little more sleep. But I had to formally call out, so I dragged myself to my computer to send the email.
You’re not getting enough gunsmoke into your system.
I took a walk yesterday and I think I overdosed on fresh air.
Morning. Related to Whiz’s gold rush stories I have a few silver dollars that came to me from my grandfather. I got them out last night and the oldest one was minted in 1879. Right around the end of this story.
Good morning, ‘slinger! Pretty cool mementos to have from your grandfather!
Morning GT. Yeah, the coins aren’t worth much money, but it’s nice to have them and remember Grandpa and Grandma.