[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

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

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

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)

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

John Nixon Manlove