Extracts from the 
 Zte/^/WILLIAM 
 
 C. LOBENSTINE 
 
EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF 
 WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/extractsfromdiarOOIoberich 
 
WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE 
 
Extracts from the Diary of 
 
 William C. Lobenstine 
 
 December 31, 1851-1858 
 
 Biographical Sketch by- 
 Belle W. Lobenstine 
 
 Printed Privately 
 1920 
 
Extracts from the Diary of 
 
 William C. Lobenstine 
 
 December 31, 1851-1858 
 
 Biographical Sketch by 
 Belle W. Lobenstine 
 
 Printed Privately 
 1920 
 
 J 
 
Copyright 1920 bt 
 Belle W. Lobenstine 
 

 CQ 
 O 
 
 Bancroft Library 
 
 In Loving Memory of 
 
 My Father 
 William C. Lobenstine 
 
 That those of us who follow after 
 may honor and love his memory and 
 live worthy of his name 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 This book does not in any sense purport to be 
 a biography. Often during Father's lifetime, on 
 our long walks together or during long quiet 
 evenings at home, he would tell of his early 
 life, repeating over and over certain incidents 
 which had impressed him deeply and so — 
 when after he had gone we found among his 
 papers two closely written diaries bound in 
 calf, telling of his trip to California and the 
 return from there — it seemed most natural to 
 work over these diaries, to try to make out their 
 closely penciled pages and, when that was 
 done, with as few changes as possible, to pub- 
 lish these, together with a brief sketch of his 
 early life and a few explanatory notes, for his 
 family, friends, and any others who may be 
 interested in these early experiences of one who 
 came seeking the best in this country. 
 
 The construction has been left unchanged 
 and is very suggestive of the German, while 
 the use of words, if at times inaccurate and 
 somewhat flowery, is remarkable when one 
 considers that but three years before he had 
 come to this country an immigrant boy, know- 
 ing no English whatever. He was constantly 
 reading, both books and the daily papers (has 
 spoken often of how, later on, he took the 
 
New York Tribune to study the editorials by 
 Horace Greeley), and then trying to use the 
 new words which he found — doubtless keeping 
 his diary partly for that purpose. On the 
 whole it would seem that he has succeeded in 
 making his thoughts remarkably clear. Some 
 of these are very characteristic of him as we 
 knew him in later years — but in religious mat- 
 ters he had reacted from the despotism of a 
 strong established church and of a narrow- 
 minded bigotry without as yet knowing the 
 deep personal religious experience which was 
 afterwards his. As to his political views — it 
 is hard to believe that they were written in 
 1852 when they might equally well have been 
 expressed at any time since 1914. 
 
 Belle Willson Lobenstine 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Christian Lobenstine or William C. Loben- 
 stine, as he called himself later on in this 
 country, was born in Eisfeld, Dukedom of 
 Meiningen, on November eighth, eighteen hun- 
 dred and thirty-one. He was the youngest in 
 his family. The others were Theodore, Caroline, 
 Frederic, Bernard, Dorothea, Georgia, and 
 Henry. They were the children of Johanne 
 Andreas and of Elizabeth Lobenstein. 
 
 His father and older brothers were tanners 
 and also farmers. Of the brothers, Theodore, 
 the eldest, seems to have been the most lovable, 
 always kind to his younger brothers and sisters. 
 Father always spoke very affectionately of him. 
 Frederic, on the other hand, the first of the 
 boys to come to this country, was stern and 
 rather arbitrary to the other members of the 
 family. These, and Henry who also came to 
 this country, together with his father and his 
 mother, whose gentleness and care he never 
 forgot, were the only ones of whom he ever 
 spoke. 
 
 The earliest known incident of his life, and 
 one to which he often referred, came when he 
 was about seven years old. He, with other 
 children, was playing by a stream near the tan- 
 nery, and he fell in. It was early spring and 
 
the waters were swollen by melting snows so 
 that he was carried down stream very rapidly. 
 His friends ran along the banks with grappling 
 hooks trying in vain to reach him. Finally, 
 however, the stream ran under a bridge and 
 here Theodore ran out and with one of the great 
 hooks used in handling hides in the tanyard, 
 caught him by the buttonhole of his vest. 
 He was unconscious but they were able to 
 bring him to and carried him to an uncle who 
 had an inn near by. After a night's rest, they 
 took him home, none the worse for his adven- 
 ture. 
 
 As he grew older he became ambitious for 
 a good education and one day while working 
 in the fields with his father, mustered up cour- 
 age to ask him to send him away to school, 
 and won his consent. He studied three years 
 and a half at the Real Gymnasium in Meiningen. 
 His life was one of the simplest and hardest. 
 He had an attic room with some townspeople 
 and ate his midday meal with them. His break- 
 fasts and suppers consisted of a jug of water 
 and a big piece of the rye bread of the country 
 with butter. Once in a while, his family would 
 send him down a ham. He kept his cot at the 
 window so that he might be awakened by the 
 first rays of the rising sun and begin to study, 
 for he always worked hard for what he got and 
 was an earnest, faithful student rather than a 
 brilliant one. He kept, however, on the highest 
 
bench all the way through common school and 
 also ranked well in the gymnasium. 
 
 After leaving school, he studied for nearly a 
 year with a country doctor, a relative of his, 
 going about with him and assisting in many 
 ways, but developed no liking for the profes- 
 sion and so gave it up and, together with his 
 brother Henry, decided to come to America 
 whither Frederic had already gone. This was 
 in eighteen hundred and forty-nine, when a 
 new spirit was abroad in Germany and when 
 people looked to this country both as a land of 
 freedom and also as a place where one could 
 almost literally pick up gold and silver on the 
 streets. At that time it was the rule in Meiningen 
 that upon emigrating, you forfeited all rights 
 and claims upon that Government and before 
 leaving he went to the Castle and signed papers 
 giving up all rights of German citizenship. 
 He left Germany with the definite idea of 
 settling in the United States, making it his 
 permanent home and becoming a part of this 
 new country. From the first, therefore, he 
 chose to associate with Americans and to use 
 the English language rather than keep up his 
 German associations. 
 
 Coming to this country from Havre to New 
 York on a sailing ship was a long and hard jour- 
 ney of fifty-three days and by the end of that 
 time, what with the hardships and poor fare, 
 many of the passengers were down with cholera. 
 
Father, among others, was taken to quarantine, 
 which was a very different place from what it 
 is now. While many were dying in the hospital 
 — and he was taken to the ward where all the 
 very worst cases were — he did not believe that 
 he was very ill or going to die. Watching what 
 was going on he saw them take one patient 
 after another and dump them into a bath with- 
 out changing the water and finally they started 
 for him. This was too much, and he jumped up 
 and ran back into another ward where the less 
 serious cases were. Here they let him stay 
 until he was able to leave the hospital. He had 
 expected to find the people of this country living 
 in great ignorance, and came expecting to 
 teach, but he was adaptable and finding that 
 such services were not required from him, a 
 young immigrant lad, he quickly turned to 
 other things. 
 
 He went first to WTieeling, where his brother 
 Frederic was in the leather business, and worked 
 for him about a year. Then he took to steam- 
 boating on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. 
 During the next two years he was first cabin 
 boy and later steward and had many stories 
 to tell of his various experiences. Once the 
 steamer upon which he was steward — through 
 a mistake in signals — struck another amidships 
 and cut her in two. Fortunately, the few passen- 
 gers on board were saved, before she sank. 
 Another time, as he went into the kitchen to 
 
give an order to the cook, that individual, 
 more drunk than sober, proceeded to grab up 
 a carving knife and run Father out of the 
 kitchen. There was much gambling at poker 
 on these river steamers which Father saw con- 
 stantly. Also much crooked work. One day a 
 man left the table and asked another to take 
 his hand for a few moments. This fellow lost 
 some money and wished to repay it, but was 
 not allowed to. So the others gradually drew 
 him into the game and cleaned him out. Another 
 time a man gambled his all (he had come on 
 board with a good pile of money) and when he 
 lost he grabbed up his money bag, ran to the 
 deck of the steamer, and before any one could 
 stop him — jumped overboard. Whether he 
 reached the shore no one knew. Probably, 
 however, he was drowned in the turbid waters 
 of the Mississippi. These incidents, together 
 with what he saw while in California, always 
 gave Father a strong prejudice against cards, 
 which he associated almost inevitably with 
 gambling and all its evils. 
 
 After two years of this life, he decided to seek 
 his fortune in the Far West, and his diary tells 
 much of these days. A few other details of 
 which he spoke may however be of interest. 
 
 The emigrant party as it started from Pitts- 
 burgh consisted of about forty men and ten 
 wagons. They shipped their wagons down the 
 Mississippi and up the Missouri to St. Joseph 
 
where they bought forty oxen. In Father's 
 wagon was Captain Speers, a river pilot with 
 whom Father had worked while steamboating. 
 He was a farmer's son who knew about cattle. 
 There was also a business man named Logan 
 from Allegheny City. He was a strong Christian 
 man, the only one in the party who carried a 
 Bible and his life and death (for it was he whose 
 death is mentioned in the diary) made a pro- 
 found impression on Father. One evening as 
 they sat at supper, Logan put down his cup 
 saying, "I don't feel well," and went into his 
 tent to lie down. There was a doctor in the 
 party who did what he could, but the next 
 morning at four Logan was dead — of cholera. 
 They buried him there on the prairie, wrapped 
 in a buffalo robe with a mound of stones over 
 the grave and sent the little Bible back to his 
 wife. On this whole trip Father was the cook 
 for his mess and he has always claimed that he 
 made a splendid one. The men of each wagon 
 seem to have camped together and had their 
 own mess. When night came the ten wagons 
 were arranged in a circle — the tongue of one 
 against the back of the next — and after the 
 cattle had been allowed to graze till midnight, 
 they were corralled within this circle. 
 
 Father's mates while mining were Captain 
 Speers, McElrey, and Evans. Their camp was 
 back in the mountains quite close to the border 
 of Nevada, with Sacramento as their nearest 
 
city, where they went for supplies. Their claim 
 was located several hundred feet above the 
 level of the creek, so in order to get water they 
 had to go back into the mountains fifteen miles. 
 They had a surveyor survey the line and then 
 these four men, not one of whom was a mechanic 
 and all but one town bred, went to work to 
 bring down water. In the first place they built 
 a dam. Then they brought the water down hill 
 and in one place bridged a valley two hundred 
 feet wide. Their form of mining was called 
 gulch mining. They built flumes or long boxes 
 with enough fall for the water to run slowly 
 and into these they dumped the pay dirt. The 
 water would wash away the earth while they 
 stood and tossed out stones, etc. Finally, after 
 running through several boxes, the earth was 
 all washed away, leaving only the heavy gold, 
 which was collected by quicksilver. 
 
 The men worked in this way for three years, 
 making no strikes and averaging about five 
 dollars a day. Then Father and Speers sold 
 out their claim and went to a large camp, 
 Camp Secco, Dry Creek, it was called, and went 
 to merchandising. They bought mules and a 
 wagon and brought in from Sacramento the 
 usual goods necessary to miners. After two 
 years, the captain went home to his family. 
 Father hired a man and kept on for another 
 year, after which he sold out and came away, 
 having accumulated six thousand five hundred 
 
dollars, the beginning of his fortune. He was in 
 California from eighteen fifty-two to eighteen 
 fifty-eight. His mates were sober, hard-working 
 men. They made no wonderful strikes and what 
 they got was by hard work and perseverance. 
 
 There were many robbers and desperadoes 
 about, and Father made one dangerous trip. 
 He had left the few schoolbooks that he had 
 carried even out to California miles away with 
 some people he knew, and one day when it was 
 raining so that he could not work his claim 
 decided to go after them. He took a mule and 
 on several occasions had to swim swollen creeks. 
 Finally, night came on, and he was caught in 
 the hills alone where many a man had disap- 
 peared never to be seen again. However, after 
 wandering about for hours in the darkness and 
 in growing terror, he reached his destination 
 at two o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Before leaving California in eighteen fifty- 
 eight he was naturalized in the San Francisco 
 court and ever held his naturalization papers 
 as one of his most prized possessions. 
 
 His diary tells of his return to the East and 
 his choice of Leavenworth for a home. Here he 
 went into the leather business as the one of 
 which he knew most and with his later life and 
 business success, we are all familiar. 
 
 Belle Willson Lobenstine 
 
I 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF 
 WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE 
 
I 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY 
 
 Among the great many opinions expressed 
 regarding usurpation of the government or 
 despotism, one attracted my attention and 
 agreed so much with my own sentiment that I 
 could not but pay due merit to the moral truth 
 of it. Despotism is despicable in its perpetrator 
 and at all times a disgrace to human beings, 
 depriving them perforce of their inalienable 
 rights and their moral esteem for themselves 
 and bringing them down on common ground 
 with slaves. Although as just mentioned, 
 despotism is at all times disgraceful to both 
 sides we ought to pity those beings more who 
 got their power as an inheritance than hate 
 them. Who would and can deny that the early 
 trainings of men lay the foundations to their 
 further field of action? Therefore, when princes 
 become the heirs of absolute governments, 
 who can expect them to act differently than the 
 Southern man does to his slaves? The latter, 
 who was brought up among the family of man- 
 kind, and has accepted principles common to 
 them, is much more to blame for his tyranny 
 than a sovereign who was raised alone isolated 
 from his fellowmen by a belief in his divine 
 
 3 
 
origin and who never imagined, therefore, nor 
 ever dreamed of the least equality with man- 
 kind. If Napoleon was great as conqueror, he 
 was equally despicable for the misuse he made 
 of the confidence entrusted in him by the peo- 
 ple, and instead of perfecting the rights and 
 liberties of the nation, he cheated them of these 
 very objects given to his care and usurped the 
 government. Napoleon knew how to play the 
 deceiver well enough to keep the people in their 
 happy dreams. He knew how to flatter them 
 by giving them all visible power, but he showed 
 by his future way of action that he only played 
 the hypocrite and that his outward course only 
 served him to attain his inward higher object 
 which was nothing short of grasping the nation 
 and enslaving his own countrymen, as all other 
 nations, which were possible for him, he con- 
 quered. Looking back from the point we started 
 and considering once more both hereditary des- 
 pots and usurpated despots, so will we certainly 
 not think so hard of one who has got that power 
 by inheritance, or who was raised from infancy 
 to this sole object of keeping the people down, 
 in poverty, and slavery, as of a usurpator, who 
 has imbibed principles of liberty and equality, 
 sympathises with his brothers, and becomes 
 then their flatterer, and by abuse of his mental 
 faculties and moral sentiments, with a happy 
 change of circumstances, their master and com- 
 mander. 
 
It is the great political question at present, 
 if America is bound by the treaties with the 
 foreign sovereigns to abstain from helping the 
 poor, downtrodden and oppressed people of 
 those countries to their attainments of their in- 
 alienable rights. It is true that at the time when 
 our constitution was made, our forefathers or 
 rather their representatives in Congress, made 
 a contract with the European princes to observe 
 neutrality in their affairs, and declared there- 
 fore it to be the duty of this government for 
 its own dignity as well as for the honor of the 
 nation not to send any help to Europe, but to be 
 free from doing such an illegal act. America 
 being, however, the most liberal, and by that 
 the most powerful government in the world, if 
 it is her duty to stick to the act which our fore- 
 fathers have made, there is still the other side of 
 the argument to consider, to arrive to a proper 
 result. Justice is the first law of nature and as 
 all of us expect to get justice done from our 
 neighbors, and especially the government we 
 have chosen out of our minds, so humanity de- 
 mands to see our brothers, however distant, 
 equalized in the same way. The consistent law 
 or the laws on which societies are framed, and 
 reared up to developed bodies, are of various 
 kinds, devised principally by our philanthropists 
 and philosophers and legislators, for the best of 
 the parties concerned. Their origin, however, 
 being of human intellect and moral sentiment, 
 
can be only as following out very narrow sources, 
 limited in their consistency with human happi- 
 ness. Laws which are the most beneficial influ- 
 ence upon a society under certain circumstances 
 and times, may be quite the opposite, with 
 another united body, under different physical 
 and moral conditions. Times and circumstances, 
 therefore, cannot be suited to laws, but the 
 latter need to be in a harmonizing cooperation 
 with the former. If, therefore, our forefathers 
 made laws or what is the same, the Constitu- 
 tion, they could not at that time, establish or 
 devise such as should stand for all times but 
 only for themselves and for their own genera- 
 tion. If Washington, John Adams or Jefferson, 
 made treaties with foreign despots, it was for 
 various causes arising out of their own at that 
 time yet feebly maintained independence. But 
 times have changed, out of that spark of freedom 
 which fell among the population of this conti- 
 nent has come a powerful government, illumi- 
 nating, with its might, the whole world, and 
 whose physical powers are sufficient to crush 
 all enemies to dust and raise downtrodden, 
 oppressed and dishumanized mankind and broth- 
 ers up to their by nature determined position 
 of equality and fraternity. As maintained be- 
 fore, the exhausted position of America, which 
 only could follow so great and sacrificing a 
 struggle as that of the war of independence, 
 obliged our forefathers to make friendly treat- 
 
 6 
 
ies with the foreign powers, to avoid if possible 
 another blow upon their rights and liberties 
 maintained so gloriously with England. But 
 what is our strength at this moment? Are we 
 still so feeble? Still so dependent on beings 
 who are the scourge of mankind and deface the 
 earth with cruelty and tyranny? We all cer- 
 tainly will say no. All will say America is no 
 more dependent on anybody but themselves 
 and nature's laws. Politics and love to live 
 forced legislators to treat friendly with despots 
 and now this voice of justice and humanity 
 calls them to throw off this so long maintained 
 mask of amity to tyrannical systems and to 
 declare themselves at once for mankind and 
 fellowmen. The voice of nature is mighty and 
 omnipotent. She calls us up out of our dream- 
 like indifference to honorable participation in 
 the fate of our fellowmen and makes it our duty 
 to stand in defense of her laws on this planet 
 and home of intellectual creatures. Let us throw 
 off then our fastidious way of action and exert 
 one and all of us the strength both physical and 
 moral, for universal happiness and so lay by 
 this the road to world's perfection. 
 
II 
 
 VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA 
 
II 
 
 VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 December thirty-first, eighteen hundred and 
 fifty-one. 
 
 Left Wheeling on Steamer Messenger for Pitts- 
 burgh, April twentieth. Exodus to California. 
 
 The tide of emigration for California swept 
 me along in its progress for the same reason as 
 thousands of others — to appropriate money 
 enough by a few years' hard toil, to secure a 
 future independency. When first the idea of 
 a movement to the West took possession of me, 
 I was wavering in the choice between California 
 and Oregon and gave finally preference to 
 Oregon on account of securing a homestead at 
 the arrival there and to judge from the last 
 news of the diggings better wages than in the 
 latter. From an inability to make up a certain 
 complement of immigrants I had to give up the 
 project and go to California. I left subsequently 
 Pittsburgh on the Steamer Paris, passing Wheel- 
 ing without seeing my brother, and arrived 
 after a week's journey down to the mouth of 
 the Ohio River and from Cairo up the Missis- 
 sippi to St. Louis. 
 
 The Ohio River is formed by the confluence 
 of the Monongahela and the Allegheny at Pitts - 
 
 11 
 
burgh, the formation of which place is alluvial 
 bottom carried down from the mountains in 
 previous ages. It has along its shores some of the 
 finest agricultural country as well as numberless 
 cities and towns, among which we count the 
 following as the largest and where the most 
 business is carried on: Wheeling, Virginia, 
 Marietta, Ohio, Cincinnati, Louisville, Evans- 
 ville, etc. Besides these, being all places where 
 manufacture of all kinds is carried on, I mention 
 from its great obstruction to navigation, rather 
 than its cosmogenic character, the Falls of 
 Louisville, with the nature of which I am, how- 
 ever, too little acquainted to give particulars. 
 A canal, which was built years ago, to overcome 
 this obstacle, is of so little dimensions that the 
 larger boats can not pass through and therefore 
 this has always been a drawback to Ohio navi- 
 gation and a hindrance to more progress for the 
 City of Louisville. Several requests have lately 
 been made from several states to Congress for 
 the construction of a new canal large enough to 
 let boats of large dimensions pass at any time 
 conveniently. The hills running alongside the 
 river beginning at its source generally slope 
 down to its shores, having in many places very 
 fertile tracts for agriculture. This mountain 
 chain proceeds most of the time in a parallel 
 direction with the river down to about one hun- 
 dred and fifty to two hundred miles below the 
 falls where they gradually descend to a level 
 
 12 
 
covered with luxurious vegetation in some places 
 while marshes extend over a considerable part 
 of it. The confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi 
 is at Cairo, built on a vast swampy and un- 
 healthy desert which, but for its low level, 
 would be the central place of the United States, 
 for merchants, around which they would gather 
 and from whose midst the greatest movements 
 would emerge and be controlled. This being, 
 however, a natural difficulty, which no human 
 skill can ameliorate, that centralizing point has 
 to move higher up the river to St. Louis. This 
 latter place has within the last twenty years 
 increased remarkably and is at present the 
 metropolis of the West and will undoubtedly 
 increase in importance in a ratio parallel with 
 the civilization of California and Oregon. By 
 the present tide of emigration to the latter 
 countries the amount of business is very much 
 increased. In consequence of this a great many 
 improvements have been made, consisting in 
 building a large number of new expensive houses 
 for merchants and manufacturers which betray 
 to every stranger at the first look the impres- 
 sion of a great and industrial city. 
 
 Leaving St. Louis on the Steamer El Paso, we 
 proceeded up the Mississippi twenty miles 
 where we left this river to follow the course of 
 another great river, the Missouri. This has in 
 its main features a great resemblance to the 
 Mississippi, having a chain of mountains parallel 
 
 13 
 
to both its shores and being sown with number- 
 less islands like the former, the most of them 
 nothing but sand carried down from the Rocky 
 Mountains. The hills, however, instead of break- 
 ing off abruptly as on the Mississippi are gen- 
 erally sloping gradually at a height of sixty or 
 seventy feet, toward the river bed. The coun- 
 try along the shores is comparatively little cul- 
 tivated, the constantly washing power of the 
 water keeping back any active efforts for agri- 
 cultural improvements. A great number of 
 quite respectable towns are met with along the 
 river, as Alton, Washington, Jefferson, Boone- 
 ville, Lexington, Independence (starting point 
 for California, Oregon and Texas) then, Kansas 
 and last St. Joseph. The Kansas River coming 
 from the West, separates Missouri from the 
 Indian Territory, the latter still peopled by 
 the Indians as their last and only resting place 
 in this country. The history of this great 
 family of the human race teaches us the con- 
 stant progress and retreat in the pursuit of 
 nature's laws, the eternal relation of all things 
 existing. This once so numerous family of red 
 men were the sole possessors of America, over 
 which they had extended in all directions, and 
 several tribes had reached a high state of civi- 
 lization when the country first was discovered, 
 but as other families analogous to their own 
 (Hindus and Malays), they retrograded by 
 some aberration of the laws of nature and fell 
 
 14 
 
back into moral darkness and gradual disap- 
 pearance from the face of the earth. The red 
 men, once the masters of this vast land, had to 
 give up their homes to give room to its present 
 inhabitants and who knows how soon an inevit- 
 able Nemesis will strike out their existence from 
 the Book of Nations? 
 
 This territory consists of mostly fertile prairie 
 land, of an undulating appearance offering most 
 beautiful fields to the observer of nature's 
 beauties. After six days' journey we arrived 
 at St. Joseph, Missouri. After our landing was 
 made, a most active business took place at the 
 wharf for a few hours arising from the delivery 
 of freight to its respective owners. Having re- 
 ceived our little property we put it in our 
 wagons and camped out about a half mile above 
 the town in a valley surrounded by hills and 
 corn fields and except for a few cold rainy days 
 we had a good encampment and passed the time 
 we were there in making preparation for our long 
 journey. 
 
 We left camp the third day of May to pro- 
 ceed on our journey further West, and after a 
 few hours traveling not obstructed by difficul- 
 ties with our teams nor bad roads, we arrived 
 at Duncan's Ferry where emigrants for the West 
 leave the United States and cross over to the 
 Indian Territory. The ferry being badly attend- 
 ed to by its owners travelers were obliged to 
 stop here rather longer than would be necessary 
 
 15 
 
if things were put in better condition with bet- 
 ter men there to take care of it. We got across 
 the river, however, after a thirty-six hour deten- 
 tion and put our foot on Indian ground the 
 morning of the fifth, went on five miles, where, 
 meeting good wood and water, we struck our 
 camp and stopped until the next morning. 
 
 May sixth. The quiet of the night from the 
 fifth to the sixth was interrupted by the heavy 
 rolling of thunder, and its darkness by flashes 
 of lightning. Towards morning we had a very 
 heavy rain, which, although it put the roads in 
 a rather bad condition, helped the vegetation 
 considerably, and therefore, was of some ad- 
 vantage to our procedure. On the morning of 
 the sixth we started on our journey, and after 
 passing a river which is difficult to cross we 
 ascended for the first time the plateau this side 
 of the Missouri. After having got up to a height 
 of about fifty feet above the level of the Missouri 
 River, a magnificent scene was displayed to 
 our view, resembling very much my native 
 country — Germany. The whole ground is 
 prairie land, running off in slight undulations 
 to the horizon and bounded in its Eastern 
 progress by the bed of the Missouri and the 
 mountain chains on the left. 
 
 Nature is in this territory following its gradual 
 progress and offers a vast land for cultivation to 
 the natives of this and other continents. The 
 civilization of this territory and Oregon will 
 
 16 
 
raise America to its pinnacle of perfection, both 
 in wealth and moral efficiency. California and 
 the Western shore of Oregon will become a 
 centralizing place for business progress from 
 which knowledge will spread out a beacon light 
 to all nations. 
 
 We traveled this day about ten miles North- 
 westward from our last encampment and about 
 fifteen miles from St. Joseph. Our team got 
 along very well and could have traveled several 
 miles more but for driving our cattle as little 
 as possible the first few days, to let them gather 
 all the strength possible. We encamped at the 
 left of the road where we met with plenty of 
 wood and water and off to the right with pasture 
 for our cattle. 
 
 On the morning of the seventh after having 
 fed our oxen and taken some refreshment our- 
 selves we started for our further journey. About 
 one-half mile from Camp we passed the Creek, 
 on its upward ascent; passing on about a mile 
 further we arrived at Wolf Creek, across which 
 the Indians have struck a bridge, for the cross- 
 ing of which they charge the emigrants a high 
 price. It is, however, a great convenience to 
 the latter, the creek being about thirty feet wide 
 and from three to four feet deep. The Indians, 
 who built the bridge, have put up their camp 
 there. This side of the creek I ascended several 
 hills, and after traveling about five miles ar- 
 rived at the Mission. This is an Indian settle- 
 
 17 
 
ment, where the Indians are taught the prin- 
 ciples of Christianity. It consists of a few log 
 huts, one of which contains stores where sev- 
 eral of our traveling companions stopped and 
 bought articles necessary on our journey. 
 
 After leaving the Mission we went on about 
 thirteen miles further, meeting within this dis- 
 tance with several springs and after passing 
 another creek we went up to the next hill and 
 put up quarters for the night. This evening we 
 bought a pony from some of the emigrants, 
 which, although not of immediate necessity for 
 the journey, is a very convenient thing to its 
 owners. 
 
 On the morning of the eighth I mounted the 
 pony and rode ahead for a few miles. I mention 
 this as being rather something great, being the 
 first riding ever I did. Crossed about three 
 miles from our last encampment — Buffalo Creek 
 — where the Indians again charge toll for cross- 
 ing and drove on this side the creek about twelve 
 miles, meeting the grave of a deceased emigrant, 
 on which lay a live dog, probably the only 
 faithful servant to his master, howling away and 
 paying the last tokens of sympathy to him who 
 was resting there in a lonely grave. We stopped 
 at the left of the road till morning, where we 
 calculated to lay over Sunday. However, 
 not finding good pasture for our cattle, 
 we left there about eleven o'clock and pro- 
 ceeded forwards about eight miles where we 
 
 18 
 
unyoked our teams and put up for the night. 
 
 May the tenth. We started early in the 
 morning, proceeding Southwest on our road. 
 Although the sky was clear at daylight, it cloud- 
 ed over toward noon and we had one of the hard 
 storms frequent on the plains and exposing the 
 emigrants to discomfort and contagious dis- 
 eases. Having driven off from the road expect- 
 ing to find water and wood in a Southwesterly 
 direction, about two miles off, we finally met, 
 after having been wet all through, a creek bor- 
 dered by plenty of timber, where we put up 
 our encampment. These were some of the most 
 discouraging moments we had since our start 
 — arising from the wet and cold of the weather, 
 and only moral courage can at this moment 
 prevent moral depression. A man that had 
 come around with us from Pittsburgh and dis- 
 played to us the most gentlemanly behaviour, 
 having started with a sick family of eight little 
 children from St. Joseph, and kept with us up 
 to this night, keeping up under all difficulties, 
 was obliged, on account of his wife getting sick, 
 a woman of the greatest energy ever met with, 
 to turn back to the States. After having dried 
 ourselves, we took a good night's rest and started 
 with new vigor the next morning on our jour- 
 ney. We had no difficulty getting along until 
 about three o'clock P.M. 
 
 About this time we arrived at a creek called 
 Mehemahah. The descent to the water is very 
 
steep and muddy, however of no great diffi- 
 culty, compared to what is on the other side. 
 Here, after passing the rapid stream, the water 
 up to the wagon beds, we had to wade through 
 some of the greatest mud holes ever met with 
 before. Several of the teams got stuck on the 
 other side. By increasing, however, the force, 
 they finally got out and cleared the road for 
 us to pass. After having proceeded about three 
 miles on this side of the Mehemahah we stopped 
 for the night. 
 
 It is Wednesday to-day, the twelfth day of 
 May, and we have safely arrived at this side 
 of the Big Blue River. This is a very nice stream 
 and bordered with willow, elm and walnut and 
 some of the oak found on the hills. We crossed 
 the river the next day having but little difficulty, 
 the river being low and the roads good. A 
 starting house is to be found at the ferry this 
 side of the river where emigrants can get what 
 is most necessary on the journey. The country 
 Westward of the Blue becomes very hilly, which 
 with the rivulets and streams between presents 
 a beautiful scene. The Blue River is about one 
 hundred fifty miles from St. Joseph and sup- 
 posed to be about one-half the distance to Fort 
 Kerney. We have traveled since our fording of 
 that stream about thirty-five miles and are at 
 the present encamped somewhere in the neigh- 
 borhood of Little Blue. The weather set in ex- 
 tremely cold and stormy about midnight and 
 
 20 
 
not having sufficient bed clothing nearly froze 
 me to death. After having got up and taken our 
 morning refreshments, we went on to our present 
 place of encampment. The just mentioned 
 stormy and extremely cold weather continued 
 throughout the day, which, with the dust raised 
 off the roads, made traveling very disagreeable 
 and difficult. 
 
 On Sunday last we got in sight of the Little 
 Blue in a Southerly direction from our present 
 route. We did not, however, come to its banks 
 before Tuesday the eighteenth day, and passed 
 up an extremely hilly country for about twenty- 
 five miles and left this river for the Platte. 
 
 We didn't leave the banks of Little Blue until 
 this afternoon, Tuesday, the twentieth, the 
 misstatement previously mentioned arising from 
 the unauthenticity of the guide we took the 
 respective distances from. The parallel distance 
 we made along the shores of this river must have 
 been about fifty to sixty miles. It is a very 
 beautiful stream, much more elevated in its 
 beauty by the barrenness of the surrounding 
 country. Its water is, when at a medium stage, 
 very clear and of very good taste. On our pas- 
 sage up the river we got in view of several 
 prairie inhabitants as wolves, chickens and sev- 
 eral miles off the river, antelopes and single 
 specimens of buffalo. 
 
 The weather of to-day, although it was very 
 pleasant and favorable to our journey, caused 
 
 21 
 
by its continued dryness a dearth of grass and 
 by this, loss in the strength of our cattle. While 
 I am writing these remarks a change of weather 
 has taken place, which likely will make an im- 
 provement in the growth of the vegetation. 
 The health of our company has been, since our 
 start, in a good condition and although a num- 
 ber of deaths, partly of cholera morbus and 
 smallpox happened among the emigrants, all 
 of us are still enjoying our vigorous health and 
 in general are in a good spirited mood. The fre- 
 quent change, however, from hot days to damp 
 cold nights is sufficient to undermine the stoutest 
 constitution. How, therefore, we will in future 
 this great gift of nature — health — preserve, is 
 not to be fixed as a definite fact. Be it, however, 
 understood, that a careful observance of physio- 
 logical laws can abate diseases to a considerable 
 extent. 
 
 May the twenty-first. We are now encamped 
 about six miles Northwards of the Little Blue, 
 and although late in the day we have on account 
 of the rainy and stormy weather, not as yet de- 
 camped. 
 
 May the twenty-third. It is Sunday to-day 
 and the great bright luminary of the day is 
 peeping over the horizon in its full splendor, 
 and eternal youthfulness animating the whole 
 creation and endowing it with new strength and 
 vigor. The remark so frequently referred to 
 by Christians that the sublime beauty displayed 
 
 22 
 
by the sun proved the existence of a God, was 
 made to me last night by a Universalist. True, 
 the beauty is grand and sublime, but it is so 
 without divinity connected with it. It is not 
 something beyond nature but a planetary phe- 
 nomenon following the great arrangements, the 
 great and eternal laws of Mother Nature. No 
 reasonable man will doubt the existence of a 
 great incomprehensible principle which per- 
 vades throughout all nature, but this principle 
 is nothing separated from the universe but is 
 the great whole itself which can exist only all 
 in all and not other ways which always was, 
 always is and always will be, although things 
 may be subjected to great changes. 
 
 We stopped in our camp a considerable part 
 of the day, Orthodox Christians objecting to 
 our movement. Calling, however, a meeting, 
 and taking every single vote, the majority car- 
 ried the motion for moving onwards. Having 
 arrived last night within three miles to Fort 
 Kerney, we made this distance in about an hour's 
 time. The resemblance of this place to the civi- 
 lized world awakened in us a great feeling of 
 happiness thinking that although far, far off from 
 home, out in a great desert, still enjoyment was 
 offered to the onward moving emigrant. The 
 fort consists of five frame houses, two for the 
 use of the commanding officers, the rest for the 
 soldiers, all built in good style well answering 
 their respective purposes. Besides these build- 
 
 23 
 
ings is a church for the service of the Lord which 
 is frequented by soldiers, civilized Indians and 
 passing emigrants. About three miles above the 
 fort, we lost, by the carelessness of one of the 
 men, our pony. By the hardest kind of running, 
 we recovered it again. Nothing of weight hap- 
 pened the next day. Having proceeded about 
 twenty miles further up the river we stopped 
 for the night. 
 
 Twenty-sixth. We are now about three hun- 
 dred and fifty miles off St. Joseph, encamped 
 along the bank of the Platte here of about one 
 and one-half miles width and very shallow. The 
 river is sown with small islands all of very 
 modern formation. They are generally over- 
 grown with cottonwoods, and some of the oak 
 kind, frequented more or less by wild geese, 
 crows and numerous birds of smaller kind. Just 
 as I am writing these lines my attention is 
 attracted by the sublimity of the scenery 
 around us. The whole Western border of the 
 horizon is grandly beautified by the setting sun 
 which, although out of sight, still leaves traces 
 of its grand and sublime beauty behind, painting 
 the horizon with the most various colours. It 
 is getting darker and the far off peaks of a moun- 
 tain chain which appears to follow a parallel 
 course with the edges of the horizon gradually 
 disappear. Quiet and peace is spread all over 
 nature's garden. Many a turbulent mind is 
 silenced by this beautiful phenomenon, and 
 
 24 
 
while yet gazing at it, is sunk in the arms of 
 the God of Sleep, Morpheus. 
 
 May the twenty - ninth, morning at five 
 o'clock. We have traveled since my last notes 
 were put down forty miles through a very barren 
 mountainous country, grass being very scarce 
 and water of inferior character, having in it 
 dissolved some alkali substances. The second 
 day or May twenty-eighth, inserting first that 
 the day before we passed several creeks, meet- 
 ing a most splendid spring at the last, we struck 
 the bluffs near about the forks of the river. The 
 bluffs which I visited this day are mainly 
 composed of sand, likely deposited there by the 
 wind in latter times. The whole bottom along 
 the Platte is mostly sand which in dry season on 
 account of the violent winds which prevail here, 
 nothing being here to break its force, is a great 
 inconvenience to travelers. The Platte river 
 bottom below and above Fort Kerney up to 
 where the road meets with the bluffs, is very 
 little above the level of its waters, varying from 
 five to fifteen feet above that, however, till when 
 you strike the above mentioned point, its alti- 
 tude is about twenty -five feet. 
 
 We met on the latter part of our journey 
 numerous graves of emigrants who had finished 
 their course in nature's garden to adopt new 
 form and shape suiting a different object in 
 nature. The deceased died mostly of cholera and 
 smallpox, more or less originating from an un- 
 
 25 
 
healthy diet, bad water and exposure. Good care 
 and observance of physiological laws, however, 
 as I previously mentioned, can considerably 
 alleviate the diseases, if not keep them off alto- 
 gether, from which cause then, I principally 
 account for the good state of our health. 
 
 We are now about crossing the river (the 
 South fork of it) the forks of which we struck a 
 day before this. The river runs in a Southwest 
 direction and is about half a mile wide and very 
 shallow, with quicksand in the bottom. The 
 fordage was of no difficulty to us, the river as 
 first mentioned being very low, and having 
 arrived on its opposite side we pursued our 
 journey in a West - Northwesterly direction 
 toward the Cedar Bluffs. After having the day 
 before stopped about five o'clock at the right 
 of the road, where we met with fairly good 
 grass and water, we traveled the next day, 
 Sunday, the thirtieth, till we reached the point 
 where the road strikes the Bluffs which latter 
 point is about twenty or twenty-five miles from 
 where we crossed the river. Stopped about ten 
 o'clock and encamped to rest ourselves and our 
 cattle for the remainder of the day, which by 
 the hard road and great heat of the past week 
 was very much required to invigorate us for the 
 future. I read several chapters of Byron, but 
 my mind being nearly down to zero on account 
 of the excessive heat, I could not concentrate 
 my spirits enough to follow his violent imagina- 
 
 26 
 
tion. Next morning we started early for the 
 Bluffs. The passage of them was very hard on 
 our teams, the weather being very hot and the 
 road being all sand, our wagons cut in very deep 
 and therefore required the hardest pulling to get 
 along. We descended down the other side — a 
 terrible steep road — having traveled about ten 
 miles over the hills and after proceeding ten 
 miles further we encamped nigh the river whirl- 
 pool. Here was a good camping ground, dry and 
 pleasant. 
 
 Tuesday we started for Ashes Hollow, being 
 about eighteen miles from our starting place. 
 The road led like the previous days through 
 very sandy regions, the parallel running bluffs 
 offering from the sameness of appearance in 
 stratifications and composition very little attrac- 
 tion to the passing travelers. Two miles this 
 side Ashes Hollow, the road ascends a very steep 
 hill, about sixty feet above the level of the sea, 
 being undoubtedly the hardest hill to pass over 
 we have met up to this on our journey. After 
 having got up to its highest point, the road 
 gradually descends into the hollow which builds 
 with the former a square angle. This valley is 
 about two hundred feet wide, bordered with 
 rocks and fine gravel in its hollow and timbered 
 with ash trees and some wild roses and grapes. 
 A cool spring, unsurpassed in its water by any 
 we have met yet in this territory, is to be found 
 to the right of the creek about a mile from 
 
 27 
 
where you first strike it. There we met a kind of 
 trading post where several articles for the re- 
 mainder of the journey for a reasonable price 
 can be got. We passed on about two miles 
 further from where we left the latter and en- 
 camped for the night (June second). 
 
 Monday, June 7th. Last week I neglected, 
 not being at leisure in mornings or evenings 
 and too much downspirited at noon, to keep up 
 my journal with the events as I met them, but 
 I shall try to recall in my memory the main 
 objects met with. For two days after we left 
 Ashes Hollow the roads were bad, being very 
 hard on our cattle as well as ourselves. We got 
 along, however, as well as circumstances did 
 permit and after passing several creeks, hove on 
 Friday last towards noon, in sight of Courthouse 
 Rocks, called so by emigrants from a supposed 
 resemblance with the building of that name, 
 but appearing to me, however, more like some 
 ancient castle than the object it is compared 
 with. The rock is about eight miles off the 
 road, a very deceiving distance to the traveler 
 who thinks it only two or three miles off. 
 
 Proceeding further, having the Courthouse 
 to our left, and the Platte at our right, the 
 pinnacle of another rock got within the reach of 
 our eye. This is what is called a chimney rock 
 from its great resemblance to some factory chim- 
 neys. Although nearly twenty miles away it 
 could distinctly be seen. We traveled on to 
 
 28 
 
within about eight miles of it and encamped to 
 the right of the road, nigh the river bank. The 
 next morning we started early. Some of our 
 company went on ahead to ascend the rock. I 
 stayed with the wagon, being not very well on 
 foot, and proceeded slowly on our journey. 
 Chimney rock is about, from its base to its 
 apex, four hundred feet high, consisting of a low 
 and second platform. Upon the latter is the 
 chimney or shaft of the rock nearly one hundred 
 feet high. This rock is principally composed of 
 marl and clay, intermixed with several strata of 
 white cement. Joining the chimney rock, right 
 above it, I beheld a most beautiful sight, being 
 a section of rock of singular construction resem- 
 bling in its appearance very much some of the 
 scenery along the Rhine. The whole consisted 
 of five rocks, one approaching the form of anoth- 
 er smaller chimney and giving with the rest a 
 most grand view, just like an ancient fort of 
 the feudal barons on an average steep ascending 
 hill, with cupola on the top assuming the forms 
 of ruins. Had I the talent of a Byron or the 
 skilled hand of a Raphael I might give an ade- 
 quate idea of the landscape, but as I am, even 
 common language is wanting to give an appro- 
 priate description. I thought it, however, 
 romantic, and truly felt more than my tongue 
 may express. O what a pity it is to be deficient 
 of Brain! 
 
 Towards evening we arrived at a trading 
 
 29 
 
post, about eight miles before the pass of Scotch 
 Bluffs, and encamped here for the night. 
 
 Sunday, set out with a cloudy sky and rain. 
 It soon, however, cleared up and turned into a 
 sunny day. We approached the Scotch Bluffs, 
 which we saw the evening before golden in the 
 light of the setting sun, and our whole attention 
 was attracted by the grandeur of the former, still 
 more beautified by the surrounding country. 
 The appearance of these sand hills, although 
 from far off like solid rock, has a very accurate 
 resemblance to a fortification or stronghold of 
 the feudal barons of the middle age, of which 
 many a reminder is yet to be met with along the 
 bank of the Rhine. The rock itself is separated 
 nearly at its middle, having a pass here about 
 fifty to sixty feet wide, ascending at both sides 
 perpendicular to a height of three hundred to 
 four hundred feet. The passage through here 
 was only made possible in 1851 and is now pre- 
 ferred by nearly all the emigrants, cutting off a 
 piece of eight miles from the old road. We 
 passed through without any difficulty and after 
 having passed another blacksmith shop and 
 trading post, which are very numerous, protec- 
 tion being secured to them by the military 
 down at Fort Laramie, we encamped for the 
 night. 
 
 We arrived at Laramie on Tuesday evening, 
 a day sooner than we calculated to get there. 
 The Fort is situated on the Laramie River, 
 
 30 
 
which joins with the Platte about two miles 
 below the Fort and about one hundred yards 
 below the bridge for crossing of which we were 
 charged two hundred dollars. The country 
 around the fort is of a pleasing aspect. The bluffs 
 which surround it slope off gradually down 
 into the valley, through which the river of the 
 same name winds in the most lovely curves, 
 whose margins are timbered with a scattered 
 growth of cottonwood and brush of various 
 kinds. The Fort consists of several caserns for 
 the subordinate soldiers, a better building for 
 the captain, a powder and provision magazine, 
 a hospital open to the broken-down travelers 
 who wish to stop there, a good store where all 
 articles a man wants in civilized countries or 
 on the plains can be bought. The garrison dis- 
 posed here is of a small number — from fifty to 
 one hundred and fifty, which number although 
 small, is sufficient to keep down any unruly 
 spirit among the inhabitants of the soil. After 
 getting a few requisite articles, we started from 
 our encampment near the Fort for the black 
 hills, along which the road runs on towards the 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The scenery, after passing the Fort and pro- 
 ceeding a few miles up the river, assumes quite 
 a different aspect from that which we have 
 passed before the Fort. The monotony of the 
 prairie land disappears, and a varied highland 
 scenery is offered to the traveler. The road leads 
 
 31 
 
generally over the bluffs at an average height of 
 about seventy to one hundred feet above the bed 
 of the Platte and in advancing approaches 
 sometimes towards the Southwestern mountain 
 chain with the Laramie Peak, whose summit is 
 six thousand feet above the sea and covered 
 with snow throughout the greater part of the 
 year. This mountain can be seen at a distance 
 of one hundred miles. We have first sight of it 
 at the Scotch Bluff, distant about that far from 
 it. Cones or little craters form the bulk of the 
 mountain and give it a romantic appearance. 
 The Platte River above the Fort Laramie takes 
 a different appearance from its lower course. 
 The low fertile land through which it runs for 
 nearly seven hundred to eight hundred miles to 
 its mouth, is changed into a highland scene. 
 Its course is rapid and cut through the solid 
 granite rocks which must have taken many a 
 century to open such passes and to such an 
 extent as we met in this part of our journey. 
 The beauty of the mountain chain is greatly 
 increased by the scattered trees of cedar and 
 pine and by the interruption of numerous 
 streams which are bordered with a most beau- 
 tiful growth of cottonwoods and other trees. 
 
 June twelfth. AVe left the river about noon 
 and ascended for the whole afternoon up the 
 highest bluffs on our advance. We got consid- 
 erably molested by the wind which blew right 
 in our faces and darkened them with sand. 
 
 32 
 
Meeting a spring up near the highest point of 
 ascent we stopped for the night. Next morning 
 started for the descent. The Blackhill road 
 comes in from where the road commences tak- 
 ing down to the bottom. We passed the LePonds 
 River, at the foot of the bluffs, a very nice stream, 
 beautifully treed with cottonwood. About four 
 miles forwards on the road we passed another 
 creek called by its red bank, Red Bank. The 
 whole country around is a red stratified rock of 
 the same kind — being iron ore. 
 
 June fourteenth. We drove about ten miles 
 to-day, passed several new graves, and crossed 
 three small creeks. Toward evening we en- 
 camped two miles up the Little Deer Creek to 
 rest our cattle, as well as ourselves, and prepare 
 for ascending the Rocky Mountains. I read 
 several pages of geology treating of the different 
 classes of rocks, their respective composition, 
 position and the circumstances under which 
 the process of protrusion and stratification took 
 place. 
 
 The fifteenth. Some of our men killed various 
 kinds of game on the bluffs with which we quite 
 prepared us a feast adequate to all luxuries we 
 ever had at home. 
 
 June the sixteenth. We took a new start 
 this morning for the future of our journey. 
 Leaving Little Deer Creek, we struck, after 
 having met with the main road, the river, 
 along the banks of which we passed all day and 
 
 33 
 
towards evening encamped within reach of it. 
 We passed Big Deer Creek about noon; the 
 country around, although the stream is of quiet 
 romantic beauty, is very barren, offering but 
 little pasture to the emigrants' teams. 
 
 June the seventeenth. This morning we 
 started for the ferry, twenty-seven miles above 
 Big Deer Creek. We arrived at the river about 
 noon and got across again three or four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, where we left the other side 
 for the bluffs and encamped about four miles 
 onwards on the road from the Platte. The 
 ferry at this place is carried on with flat boats 
 which are fastened to ropes spread across the 
 river. The current carries them from one shore 
 to the other. The following day we started very 
 early in the morning, ascended Rattlesnake 
 Hills, very rocky, and pursued our journey this 
 day through an extremely barren section of 
 country, the soil being mainly sand without any 
 good water and grass. At Willow Springs 
 twenty-six miles above the Platte ferry we ar- 
 rived towards evening and put up for the night. 
 
 Not having any grass at all we started very 
 early next morning intending to stop wherever 
 any pasture could be found. Meeting the object 
 of our wishes, we grazed the cattle for several 
 hours. Ponds with alkali water being about, 
 several of our cattle got to drink, and shortly 
 after our start, several got to be very sick, the 
 alkali beginning to operate. We gave some of 
 
 34 
 
them fat bacon and some vinegar to neutralize 
 the alkali, which had the best wished effects. 
 
 The country passed over to-day is very sandy 
 and dry, offering nothing hardly to the passing 
 emigrants. The hills which range along this 
 part are called Blue Hills, probably from the 
 growth of pines with which they are planted. 
 
 Sunday, June the twentieth. Proceeding on- 
 wards, we came to the Indian Dance Rock, 
 called so by Colonel Fremont in 1847. This rock 
 is a huge pile of granite about half a mile in 
 circumference and one hundred-fifty feet high. 
 Its sides are decorated with numerous names of 
 emigrants who passed them since '49. The road 
 leads to the left of the rock along the river and 
 crosses it about one and one-half miles from the 
 said rock. Five miles onwards, passing over a 
 very sandy road, we arrived at Devil's Gate, a 
 precipice between the perpendicular walls of 
 which the Sweetwater passed. This is undoubt- 
 edly the most interesting sight to the attentive 
 traveler, made so by the profound deepness 
 of the pass and the stratse of ancient rocks laid 
 open to the view of the naturalist. The rocks 
 here are piled up in a strange chaos, consisting 
 of primary (hypogene) rocks turned up on their 
 edges in a nearly perpendicular position, inter- 
 mixed with others in a horizontal and vertical 
 position. The descent of this rock is, on account 
 of its steepness, very difficult and connected 
 with considerable danger. Too great precaution 
 
 35 
 
can't be taken by explorers. The river undergoes 
 a fall of nearly ten or twelve feet, the water 
 running very rapidly in its onward bound course. 
 The road from here leads more or less along the 
 river for twenty-five miles, where it separates in 
 two, one crossing the river and the other takes 
 over the bluffs. This latter road is extremely 
 sandy and as heavy a pull for cattle as any part 
 of the road we have passed. Teams that have 
 not been taken proper care of, generally are 
 lessened here by several of them breaking down 
 by fatigue and feebleness. 
 
 Traveling onwards we struck the river and 
 passed along it for two miles where we ascended 
 the bluffs again. Viewing the surrounding 
 country, we discovered on the edges of the 
 horizon a very large snow clad mountain, its 
 summit nearly hid in the clouds, and its sides 
 shining in a bedazzling luster. 
 
 June the twenty-third. Rain setting in 
 through the night, we were obliged to take a 
 very early start. The alkali, with which the 
 ground was covered, being dissolved by the 
 water, might, if drunk by the cattle, have some 
 very serious effect. Passing the bluffs, nothing 
 of note happened, and after fourteen miles 
 traveling, we arrived at the river banks, where 
 we stopped to feed our cattle and took our own 
 repast. Pasture being very gloomy here, we 
 left for our afternoon's journey. After crossing 
 the river we ascended a very steep hill, very 
 
 36 
 
stony and barren ground, the road leading 
 down towards the river, where it turns at nearly 
 a square angle, and ascends another very steep 
 hill. The descent here is very rapid and slopes 
 off into the Sweetwater Valley. Pursuing our 
 course upwards, we met with some good pasture 
 where we stopped and encamped for the night. 
 June the twenty-fifth. Having enjoyed a 
 good night's rest and taken a good repast, we 
 started with our cattle pretty well filled for the 
 bluffs. This mountain, or rather tableland, 
 about three to four hundred feet above the 
 level of the river or six to seven thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea, is principally com- 
 posed of aqueous rocks of tertiary formation, 
 sand and gravel, which are turned up here in 
 vertical position, the upturned edges giving 
 evidence of volcanic action. The road over this 
 rock, of course, is very stony and hard, difficult 
 to pass over for the cattle. We struck a branch 
 of the Sweetwater this side the bluffs, about 
 fifteen miles from where we ascended them. 
 The weather to-day is very unpleasant, heavy 
 and cold showers drenching us several times. 
 Meeting with no grass up to our usual stopping 
 time, we drove on till late trying to make the 
 river, where we expected to meet with some good 
 pasture. At our arrival there we found the 
 prospects as poor as previously met with. 
 Stopped, however, and the next morning crossed 
 for the last time the Sweetwater. 
 
 37 
 
The weather to-day, although the road led 
 us through hills covered with snow, was fair 
 and warm, and the contrast or change it was 
 from yesterday, made the travelers the more 
 sensitive to it. We arrived at the South pass 
 about noon and stopped to take dinner at the 
 Pacific Springs. The pass goes through the moun- 
 tain gradually so that when the traveler arrives 
 at this point he hardly feels satisfied with the 
 reality. The country along here is extremely 
 poor. No grass, and even good water is scarce. 
 The road ascends again this side the springs, 
 and continues hilly for about eighteen miles, 
 when it separates in two branches, the Mormon 
 road going off in a South, South-west, the Cali- 
 fornia road in a nearly due West direction. Our 
 wagons arriving at the fork, struck without any 
 previous consultation with the company, the 
 Mormon road. Proceeding onwards we forded 
 the Little Sandy, nine miles off the fork and 
 eight and one-half miles further onwards the 
 Big Sandy — both pleasant streams with a lovely 
 growth of willows and cottonwood. We en- 
 camped this side the bank of the latter stream 
 where there was good pasture for our cattle 
 and all necessaries for our own comfort. 
 
 June twenty-sixth. This day being Sunday and 
 one man in our company being sick and in rather 
 poor condition to travel, we stayed all day and 
 recruited ourselves and our oxen. Nothing hap- 
 pened throughout the day except that several 
 
 38 
 
of the Snake Indians caught squirrels about our 
 neighborhood and paid us a short visit. Towards 
 evening, read several passages out of the Bible 
 and argued aboiit the vulgar sentiment and 
 language used in many places. 
 
 Monday morning, started stout and hearty on 
 our journey and have just arrived again after 
 passing over about eighteen miles of highland to 
 the Big Sandy. There we strike this stream for the 
 last time and are making now for Green River, 
 ten miles further onwards. About five miles 
 from our starting point the road forks. The 
 upper road is called Kiney's cut off and joins 
 with Sapplett's cut off. The lower branch 
 strikes the Green River, which is on account of 
 its extreme swiftness very hard to cross. The 
 fording of this river is, by a good ferry carried 
 on by Mormons, very much facilitated. Emi- 
 grants crossing here at the beginning of the 
 California emigration had a great deal of trouble 
 to get their stock across — numbers of them lost 
 their lives and stock both. 
 
 Green River leads into the Rocky Mountains 
 and numerous tributaries are flowing into it on 
 its Southwesterly course where it pours its 
 waters into the Colorado. The river is about 
 one hundred and fifty yards wide and con- 
 siderably deep; its water is very cold from its 
 snowy origin and runs at the rate of five to 
 eight miles an hour. We forded the river on 
 the morning of the twenty-ninth and followed 
 
 39 
 
down along its banks for eight miles in a South- 
 eastern direction. Took then the bluffs and 
 traveled on Southwards for about five miles 
 where we encamped near a branch of the river 
 with plenty of grass. Although snow clad moun- 
 tains bordered the horizon in the South the 
 weather was extremely warm and what made it 
 still more burdensome were the myriads of 
 mosquitoes which molested us very much, yes 
 extremely so. 
 
 Next morning we traveled onwards five miles 
 from our last camping ground and crossed a 
 branch of the Green River, on the other side of 
 which we took the bluffs, descending several 
 times into valleys where the river pursued his 
 ocean-bound course. After striking the river 
 the last time about ten miles from where we 
 passed the branch we ascended again and trav- 
 eled on in a Southwest direction. Meeting a 
 small stream of water here about five miles 
 distant from where we left the river, we en- 
 camped for the night. 
 
 July first. Left this encampment after having 
 put in a horrible night with mosquitoes, bound 
 for Fort Bredger, twenty miles from this spot. 
 The road along this distance is hilly and stony, 
 pasture and water scarce, scenery poor up to 
 where we have sight of the Fort which is located 
 in a beautiful valley and named for this reason 
 the Garden of the Mountains. From here the 
 road gradually ascends a ridge and on the lat- 
 
 40 
 
ter, about five miles this side the Fort, we en- 
 camped for the night. Cedar trees growing 
 spontaneously here, we had plenty wood for 
 cooking use and good pasture for the cattle. 
 
 The road from now covers very hilly country 
 over high ridges and deep valleys with very 
 steep ascents and descents, therefore very hard 
 for our teams. Proceeding onwards we met some 
 most lovely and beautiful sights of natural 
 beauty and but the hum of rural life would be 
 necessary to make it a second Eden- To give 
 an adequate idea of the beauty of this country 
 none but a Byron or some other passionate 
 writer can do. I, however, add that the high 
 going sea appears to have the most resemblance 
 to this interrupted bottom. The soil which 
 covers the most of these mountains is very spon- 
 taneous (fertile), the most so in the bottoms. 
 The mountains themselves are a deposit of water, 
 the greatest number of them lately by then- 
 abrupt form and to my view are gra vity rocks, 
 cemented together by some binding matter. 
 The formations of many of these rocks offer 
 quite a picturesque view as we pass by. Caves 
 and tunnels of all shapes are carved into them 
 by the dissolving power of water. Towards 
 noon to-day after having p*^***) many ups and 
 downs, we arrived at the highest point between 
 the States and Salt Lake, T^ie height of this 
 ridge is seven thousand, seven hundred feet 
 above the level of the sea and is the dividing 
 
 41 
 
ridge between the Colorado and the water of 
 the great basin. From this point on we descended 
 more or less and having arrived in the valley 
 we traveled on about sixteen miles to the Sul- 
 phur Springs where we encamped for the night. 
 Next day our road continued over the same 
 interrupted ground. About two miles from our 
 last camp forwards on the road we arrived at 
 Bear River which we crossed with some difficulty 
 and went on to Echo Creek meeting on our road 
 some Indians who traded us venison for powder 
 and beads. Here we stopped for the night 
 and after we got our breakfast next morning, 
 July the fourth, we followed the river down 
 twenty miles, crossing it seventeen times in 
 this distance. This valley along which the 
 road leads is very narrow bordered on both sides 
 with high mountains of gravelly composition 
 closely cemented together. The valley runs in 
 a nearly Southern direction and runs on to where 
 Echo Creek joins the Webber River, a stream 
 about the size of Bear River. We crossed the 
 river Sunday towards evening and went onwards 
 several miles of nearly steady descent from the 
 top of a hill which we had previously ascended 
 to a creek along which we traveled about twelve 
 miles crossing it thirteen times — crossings very 
 bad. After we had the last crossing we com- 
 menced to climb a very difficult ascent. At 
 the top of the latter, four miles from the base 
 to the high point, the road leads down hill 
 
 42 
 
again. Echo Creek which heads on this side of 
 the mountains runs on to the city. The road 
 leads alongside of it, crossing it some twenty 
 times. We traveled on till three o'clock when 
 we struck the foot of a mountain three miles this 
 side of town and encamped for the night. 
 
 The Salt Lake Valley is built by high moun- 
 tains whose summits reach into the clouds, 
 forming with its craggy sides a picturesque and, 
 joined with the beauty of the valley, a lovely 
 scene. The valley is thirty miles wide and 
 some seventy-five to one hundred miles long. 
 Within its mountainous enclosure it contains 
 some of the most fertile and beautiful country 
 ever looked on by men. The Salt Lake which 
 stretches along the Valley on the North side helps 
 to beautify the scene. Beside this is the town 
 itself which is laid out in practical lots consist- 
 ing in a house and garden lot, the latter for agri- 
 cultural purposes. The houses, about one thou- 
 sand in number, are built of mud, dried in the 
 sun and are in every way like the houses in the 
 States. The people to the number of about six 
 thousand living in the city and about four thou- 
 sand in different counties of the valley are 
 Mormons. Although their creed contains a 
 great many foolish things, they have in some of 
 their social arrangements the advantage over us 
 and the traveler passing through Salt Lake 
 Valley and seeing everything working harmoni- 
 ously together as nature itself cannot help but 
 
 43 
 
think them, more so, if he looks upon the crops 
 which nature spontaneously produces here, a 
 happy and nearly independent people. One of 
 the precepts of their faith, Polygamy, although 
 generally used as a reproach to them, I person- 
 ally admit as a true natural one, being consis- 
 tent with nature. Having supplied ourselves 
 with a few more necessaries for the remainder 
 of the trip and some little repairing done to our 
 teams, we left the city intending to stop at some 
 good pasture place in the valley. On the road 
 which runs on along through town towards the 
 North we met with the Hot Spring at the left 
 of the road. This Spring comes out of the sur- 
 rounding mountains, being of nearly boiling 
 heat and containing in it diluted a high percent- 
 age of sulphur. 
 
 The weather to-day is very hot and oppres- 
 sive, being the more burdensome on account of 
 my not being well, having previously been weak- 
 ened by sickness. Eight miles from here, to 
 the left we espied good grass and a stream of 
 water, where we encamped and stopped there for 
 the next two days. While lying here I took sick 
 again, being a relapse of my former illness of 
 dysentery. In applying though some of Dr. 
 Dickson's pills and some other strong mixture 
 besides this, I stopped it and I am fully con- 
 vinced to-day that by paying a little precau- 
 tion to diet I shall get well and strong again. 
 
 We left our camp on Saturday, the tenth day 
 
 44 
 
of July, traveling along a high mountain range 
 through the valley for about sixteen miles, 
 crossing in this distance several small creeks 
 bordered with willows and aspens. A great part 
 of the country is well cultivated and loaded 
 with a heavy crop of wheat, some corn and 
 luxurious meadows, the latter rivalling any I 
 ever saw before in any country. This evening 
 we encamped at a small streamlet about twenty- 
 five miles from the city. Grass very scarce, all 
 other things however easy to be got. From 
 houses being about here, we had plenty of milk 
 and butter. 
 
 Sunday the eleventh. Started late, many of 
 the company having not got used to our former 
 speedy proceeding yet. Drove over some 
 sandy roads through desert country to the 
 Webber river, which we had crossed just a week 
 ago in its upper course. The river being in a 
 low state, we forded it ourselves without any 
 difficulty and stopped three miles on the other 
 side of it, where we caught up with a wagon 
 of our company that had left us at the city. 
 
 Monday, July the twelfth. This morning the 
 road led through brush and high grass onto a 
 second bank along which we travelled the whole 
 day, passing numerous farms on the lower side 
 of the road and crossing several creeks in the 
 latter part of the day. To the right of the road 
 runs a mountain chain about one thousand to 
 one thousand five hundred feet above the level 
 
 45 
 
of the lake, its sides as well as summit ornament- 
 ed with a lovely growth of cedars and some of 
 its crevices filled with snow. This evening we 
 struck camp three miles this side of Grazing 
 Creek where we laid till next morning to pro- 
 ceed no further on our journey. 
 
 This day, the road crossed several creeks, the 
 first, Grazing, and five miles onward from this, 
 Box Elder — further on, several small creeks and 
 springs so that we had abundance of water all 
 day. At Box Elder, we left the settlement, and 
 pursued our course again on the Desert where 
 our former contest with hardships and priva- 
 tions began from now on for the remaining 
 journey. We traveled to-day twenty miles 
 from Willow Creek and encamped at a Spring 
 five miles this side of Bear River. This stream we 
 crossed next day early in the morning paying 
 four hundred dollars ferriage and proceeded on- 
 wards. From here we had as hard times as we 
 ever saw on the plains arising from our want of 
 good water for thirty-six miles which latter 
 circumstance with the extreme heat was very 
 hard on us and the cattle. We arrived at the 
 end of the above mentioned distance about noon 
 the next day at Hensols Spring where we 
 stopped and refreshed ourselves with some good 
 cold water. The road along this distance leads 
 over a very hilly and dry country which on 
 this latter account disappoints the choking 
 emigrant extremely, expecting at every roll to 
 
 46 
 
have in sight some fountain to revive the ex- 
 hausted energies. 
 
 Six miles further we struck Deep Creek, 
 running on the North side of the valley until 
 where the road strikes the valley, where it 
 turns toward the South and about six miles 
 downward it sinks in the ground. At this place, 
 called Deep Creek Sink we arrived next day 
 and our cattle being worked down and their 
 feet being sore, the company again decided to 
 stay here and rest them as well as recruit our- 
 selves somewhat. 
 
 July sixteenth. We left our last encampment 
 at the sink and proceeded downwards for the 
 Pilot Springs where we intended to water the 
 cattle. The country begins here to get poorer, 
 pasture becoming extremely scarce now, hardly 
 to be found on creeks and around slews and then 
 only a good way up or down stream. 
 
 Seventeen miles from Deep Creek Sink at 
 some Springs in the side of a hill we met with 
 good pasture and although still early in the 
 day, we stopped there and lay till morning. 
 Cedar trees and sage bushes are all the vegeta- 
 tion to be seen in this region and the journey 
 on this account is monotonous and tiresome. 
 The road from here takes over a hill from which 
 can be seen for the last time the Salt Lake with 
 its blue waters and its mountain high islands 
 which with the surrounding hills offers quite a 
 picturesque view to the observer. 
 
 47 
 
About eight miles from Mountain Springs 
 onwards we came to Stony Creek, a mountain 
 stream whose water is more or less made up of 
 melted snow and ice and is very cold, therefore 
 very much relished by travelers. From Stony 
 Creek to the Casus Creek, distant about eight 
 miles, the country continues very poor having 
 nothing but wild sage and cedars on the bluffs. 
 Casus Creek is a small stream bordered like 
 all the creeks in this country with willows, the 
 latter from the thick bunches in which they 
 stand, a hiding place to the Indians. Pasture 
 along this Creek is plenty, therefore good camp- 
 ing here. The road follows up the Creek about 
 eight miles and crosses it in this distance three 
 times, the middle ford being considerable miry 
 when we passed. 
 
 Leaving Casus Creek the road ascends grad- 
 ually towards a high situated point about five 
 miles, where it joins with the cut off roads, three 
 hundred and seventy miles West from the forks 
 of the main road. 
 
 Coming up towards the summit of the hill we 
 hove in sight of the City Rocks, being numerous 
 rocks of all sizes and shapes piled up so on the 
 slope of a mountain towards North West which 
 resembled in appearance a city at a distance 
 built on the side of a hill. From here the road 
 descends down into a valley about five or six 
 miles long with several small creeks which were, 
 however, dry when we passed them. Ascending 
 
 48 
 
the hills on the West side of the valley we met 
 with some water to the left, running down 
 parallel with the road, and traveling on a mile 
 further struck its head, consisting of several 
 good cold springs. Next morning we started 
 on our road which on account of many sliding 
 rocks was very difficult and extremely hard on 
 cattle. These hills are called Gooth Creek 
 Mountains, running along a stream called the 
 same name. Their forms and shapes are very 
 various and mostly composed of aqueous rocks 
 in parallel stratas. Five miles traveling over 
 this interrupted ground brought us into the 
 Gooth Creek Valley which we followed up 
 eighteen miles — the roads good and grass plenty. 
 The valley along the upper course of the Gooth 
 Creek narrows; the mountains forming the 
 valley are steep and composed of some granular 
 gravel. Small sharp edged rocks are scattered 
 all along the road and are very hard on catties' 
 feet. 
 
 At the head of Gooth Creek we met a good 
 spring coming out from under the rocks. The 
 water is cold and the weather being very hot 
 we relished it very much. From here the road 
 leaves the Gooth Creek Valley and continues 
 over a mountainous, rocky and very barren 
 country to the Rock Spring Valley. At the head 
 of it to the right are several cold springs coming 
 like the one spring at the head of Gooth Creek 
 from under a rocky ledge. Grass around this 
 
 49 
 
spring is little or none. Following the road, 
 however, for about four miles further, grass 
 became plentiful and more so toward the head 
 of the valley. Crossing several ridges, we de- 
 scended into Thousand Spring Valley, so called 
 in consequence of the numerous Springs some 
 of very high temperature; others are mere cold 
 wells of considerable depth. The road leads 
 here along the valley ten miles and pasture was 
 real good. 
 
 July the twenty-fourth. Friend and compan- 
 ion Logan died this morning at five o'clock. 
 Logan, a partner in our team, took sick very sud- 
 denly about noon this day about two miles 
 this side Hot Springs. Driving on some few 
 miles after noon, the disease came on in a very 
 serious manner so that we were obliged to stop 
 and camp. His strength failed rapidly and 
 cramps in all his parts caused him very aggra- 
 vating pains. Getting worse and worse and 
 medical help having no effect on him we finally 
 concluded that although unsuspected and how- 
 ever sudden he would go home to his Father. 
 Living on till sunrise next day, he died about 
 five o'clock in the morning after a sickness of 
 seventeen hours. This then is human life — to 
 live, to eat, to propagate and die. We, from this 
 eventful place which we left after interring the 
 deceased, proceeded over a long ridge which, 
 sloping upon the other side and ascending again, 
 gradually descended, taking us a stretch of 
 
 SO 
 
twenty miles into the Humbolt Valley, the 
 mountains of the same name being in view 
 covered with the everlasting snows. We fol- 
 lowed down the valley about eighteen miles 
 and camped on the North Branch of Mary's 
 River about three miles from where we forded it. 
 
 July twenty-sixth. The road from the ford 
 of the North Branch runs along a beautiful 
 valley to where it joins the South Fork of 
 Mary's River, twenty miles below the above 
 mentioned point. Grass along this valley is 
 more plentiful than any other place we found 
 along the whole route. The water, although not 
 very cool, is good. From the junction of the 
 two forks, another valley commences, the river 
 following it down for twenty-eight miles. At 
 this point the road leaves the river for the 
 bluffs after having previously come to the 
 forks of the road, crossed the river four times 
 within six miles and followed it down about 
 ten miles further to a small tributary of Mary's 
 River. 
 
 From here when we started early next morn- 
 ing, we had to travel over a section of moun- 
 tains pretty steep and stony. Descending on 
 the other side of these hills we met with several 
 good springs on the road side and finally after 
 a tedious forenoon's drive we struck the river 
 again twenty miles from where we left it last. 
 The roads along here being very sandy and so 
 many teams passing ours it raises any amount 
 
 51 
 
of dust which is very disagreeable to emigrants 
 and hard on cattle. We followed the river for 
 four miles when, finding good grass, we camped 
 for the night. Twenty miles further down stream 
 the main road takes to the right over the bluffs, 
 another road crosses the river and follows down 
 on the South side. The latter road is preferred 
 in low water, being the best and shortest as 
 well as having most grass on this side of Hum- 
 bolt. About forty miles onwards where we 
 forded the stream it — the road — takes up over 
 a rough hill leaving the river at the ascent and 
 coming to it again at the descent, about two 
 miles distant. 
 
 August the second. From this point the road 
 takes over a hill about five miles long when it 
 descends into the valley again. Pasture along 
 here is poor, the bottom being mostly over- 
 grown with sage. Although grass is scarce, for 
 the whole journey the careful emigrants can 
 always find sufficient feed for their cattle. 
 
 The road follows down the valley in a parallel 
 direction with the river for about twenty miles 
 where it turns on an obtuse angle and runs off 
 in a Southwest direction. Here the road takes 
 over low sandy hills and along the banks of 
 the river alternately. Twenty miles from our 
 starting point, we encamped on the river 
 banks. 
 
 August the fifth. Ascended a hill about one- 
 half mile on from our camp, pretty steep and 
 
 52 
 
sandy. The road continues this way all along 
 for about twenty miles more where it takes 
 the bluffs for eighteen miles through a sandy 
 desert about three or four miles parallel with 
 the river. In the evening after a hard day's 
 drive, we struck the river but did not meet with 
 any grass which our starved animals badly 
 needed. The following day we ascended the 
 bluffs again for another eighteen miles desert 
 having no grass nor water for the teams. Leav- 
 ing, however, the main road and taking towards 
 the river we got near enough to water our cattle, 
 after which we drove on about four miles further 
 and struck the river again finding tolerable 
 good grass. Next day we started for the mead- 
 ows and sink of Humbolt River. The distance 
 to the former being about fifteen miles, roads 
 bad, both sandy and hilly, no grass between, 
 river handy enough in some places to water 
 the stock. 
 
 Saturday evening we arrived at the meadows, 
 our teams weakened from want of grass and 
 several days' hard pulling. From here to the 
 edge of the desert it is about twenty-five miles 
 which we made in three days, recruiting our 
 stock, making grass and taking on water. 
 
 Thursday afternoon, about three o'clock, we 
 started with seven head of cattle and one horse, 
 all of them in fair condition, 'for the desert — a. 
 distance of forty miles without water and grass, 
 hilly and sandy roads. Thousands of dead cattle 
 
 53 
 
were lying along this road which had gone out 
 at the previous emigration. One of our oxen 
 gave out, detaining us for several hours. Slay- 
 ing the latter however, we arrived safe although 
 a very close call at Carson River. Here people 
 from California have put up their shops, hav- 
 ing liquor and fixtures for sale for the emigrants 
 at high prices. Grass being scarce here we 
 started up the river about five miles. Being 
 about camping time and our cattle very tired 
 we stopped for the night. 
 
 From here we started the next morning hav- 
 ing about five miles ahead a desert of thirteen 
 miles. Before we started into the latter, we 
 stopped and fed the teams for a few hours, 
 then started on the said desert and the footers, 
 among which I was, traveled up along the river, 
 being higher and more pleasant than the main 
 road. At the point where the latter strikes the 
 river again we found good company which in- 
 duced us to stop for the night, grass for our 
 stock being plenty. From here the road takes 
 over the bluffs, being sandy again as the day 
 before and the country as poor as the deserts. 
 Twelve miles' traveling took us to the river 
 where we stopped and nooned. From here the 
 road gets to be stony and sidling, hard on 
 wagons and teams, leading over undulating 
 ground all along. About twenty-five miles 
 further ahead the road takes over a hill, a 
 perfect desert. To the left of this is mining 
 
 54 
 
carried on in a Canyon. Although it does not / 
 pay as well as some mines in California, still 
 it allows fair wages to the diggers. Some of 
 us, among them myself, would have stopped 
 and dug here but for certain bondages which 
 we could not get rid of without injuring our 
 pecuniary interest. 
 
 The distance here from the river to it again 
 is thirteen miles, roads tolerably good. In the 
 afternoon of this day (Sunday) we traveled 
 over another sandy plain to the river, eight 
 miles, where we camped over night and started 
 Monday morning all hearty and well. During 
 the day's travel we passed a good many trad- 
 ing posts, crossing numerous mountain streams 
 with good cold water. Grass along here is 
 plenty so that stock as well as men do well in 
 this valley. Another day's travel will take us 
 to the foot of the Canyon which we ascend to 
 take us to Hope Valley. To-day at noon we 
 arrived within a few miles of the Canyon where 
 we stopped for noon. Leaving this place we 
 intend to ascend the ravine in the afternoon. 
 
 We took into the Canyon on the morning of 
 the eighteenth and ascending it we met the 
 worst road on the whole route being both 
 rocky and steep and extremely hard on cattle 
 and wagons. The whole Canyon is sown with 
 rocks (metamorphic species) thrown there in 
 chaos by volcanic eruption and offers to the 
 travelers with its steep pine clad mountains 
 
 55 
 
one of those grand scenes of nature which are 
 only met with in mountainous or volcanic 
 countries. Five or eight miles of the hardest 
 traveling brought us into Hope Valley at the 
 other side of the Canyon which we followed up 
 to where the road takes the hills again and 
 finding at this point some excellent pasture we 
 encamped. 
 
 AYe left our last night's camp where we suf- 
 fered considerably by the cold and started to 
 ascend the first of the mountains of the Nevada. 
 The ascent is gradual for several miles till the 
 road comes to red rock where it takes a sudden 
 ascent for about one-half mile being very steep 
 and rocky and undoubtedly constitutes with 
 the yesterday's passed Canyon the greater part 
 of the elephant which will be finished tomorrow 
 by the steepest and highest ascent of the Sierra 
 Nevada. Up this mountain we doubled teams 
 and our wagons being light we arrived safely 
 at the summit about seven thousand feet above 
 the level of the sea. Grass being scarce here we 
 descended about four miles on the other side of 
 the mountain into a valley where we found some 
 good feed along the lake shore. 
 
 August twentieth. Started for the ascent of 
 the last and highest mountain of the Sierra 
 Nevada, taking first over a mountain of five 
 hundred to one thousand feet in height which 
 brought us to the foot of the last mountain, 
 we began our ascent, but though it was very 
 
 56 
 
stony and high, we had less difficulty in pass- 
 ing over it than the one we ascended the day 
 before. I myself arrived at the summit about 
 ten o'clock where I disposed of our horse which 
 had caused me a good deal of trouble. This done 
 I took a view of the country around me. I 
 always fancied to myself that the beauties of 
 the mountainous countries were grand and 
 sublime but never could I fully imagine such 
 a vast and chaotic beautiful scene as I found 
 here. The whole mountains are made up of 
 metamorphic rocks, thrown here by volcanic 
 causes. The mountains which extend around 
 you, standing at the summit to the edge of 
 the horizon are interrupted by alpine valleys 
 filled with beautiful meadows and lakes of 
 cold mountain water which help to make the 
 grand scene of the mountains lovely and rural 
 to the observer. 
 
 We passed over the summit and drove on 
 this day over mountain ridges and encamped 
 at night at about the same level as we traveled 
 over in the afternoon, finding some grass and 
 water on the mountain side. 
 
 The following day took up the fork of the 
 road, the one to the right taking to Hangtown, 
 the left hand one to Volcano. The distance 
 from the fork to the latter place is about thirty- 
 five miles, very hilly and extremely dusty, grass 
 and water scarce — from ten to twenty miles 
 apart in the valleys. 
 
 57 
 
We arrived at Volcano August twenty-third 
 and sold our stock the next day for the sum of 
 three hundred dollars, making my share with 
 our previous receipt for horse and one yoke of 
 cattle, eighty-seven dollars and subtracting this 
 from the whole of my expense leaves me ninety 
 dollars debit to the journey. 
 
 At Volcano is the first mining district met 
 this side the Nevada and provisions being tol- 
 erable cheap and some of the digging middling 
 favourable some five of us concluded to stay 
 here a while and try our luck. 
 
 Sunday, August twenty-ninth. We went to 
 work the second day from our arrival and sunk 
 a shaft from ten to twelve feet deep at which 
 depth we struck a lead paying us about eight 
 to ten cents to the ton. Water which we hap- 
 pened to strike got to be very troublesome, 
 keeping us back considerably in our proceeding 
 to get out the pay dirt for washing. All we earned 
 up to the present is about four dollars. We 
 calculate however to make more next week if 
 we keep on at work steady and keep our health. 1 
 
 Evidently a journal was kept during eighteen hundred 
 and fifty-three which has been lost. 
 
 58 
 
Ill 
 
 LAST YEARS IN CALIFORNIA 
 RETURN TO THE EAST 
 
Ill 
 
 LAST YEARS IN CALIFORNIA— RETURN TO 
 THE EAST 
 
 April twenty -ninth, eighteen hundred and 
 fifty-four. 
 
 Several weeks have elapsed since closing my 
 last journal to the present date of this entry, 
 and longer still this interval might have been 
 but for sickness, which keeps me from my daily 
 task and compels me to pass the hours of ennui 
 and solitude by such means as circumstances 
 afford. Among these means, reading is my fav- 
 orite occupation if the subject of it is attractive 
 and pleasing and one main reason that my diary 
 is not more regularly kept is because it is easier 
 to read the productions of others' minds than 
 to make efforts for a similar purpose ourselves. 
 The efforts I am going to make are not to be 
 compared to the writing of fictitious works, nor 
 still less scientific essays but are simply to note 
 down the most important occurrences of my 
 career — a few abrupt ideas of my own and other 
 men and some remarks upon the political and 
 moral affairs of the world. 
 
 Well then, to begin. I am at present as al- 
 ready stated, compelled by sickness to stop in 
 the house for an uncertain period of time which, 
 however, I ardently hope may not fetter me 
 
 61 
 
like the criminal to his cell longer than nature 
 may possibly require to heal the diseased part 
 of my body. This is a sore ankle, caused by the 
 rubbing of the seams of a boot, which, as un- 
 doubtedly a muscle or nerve was hurt, affects 
 the whole system and gives me a good deal of 
 pain. These things will, however, always happen 
 and always by our own fault or carelessness — 
 at least this is my case. Having this conviction 
 one must try to take it as patiently as possible. 
 
 Although rain in April is rather a rarity, still, 
 we had several showers within the last week 
 or so and a very wet night and forenoon today. 
 This is a great benefit to the country, both to 
 the vegetable and auriferous world. The former 
 it animates while the water channels which it 
 swells assist the miner in procuring the latter — 
 ore. I have been tolerable successful for the 
 last three months, averaging about five dollars 
 per day with prospects of continuing so as long 
 as may be water for our supply. The troubled 
 state of our company has temporarily subsided. 
 Which fact is more to be ascribed to the just 
 mentioned success than to an alleviation of 
 the antagonistic elements prevailing among us. 
 This however is not looked for by myself, nor 
 does it matter any in this case what the cause 
 is, as long as the effect is good. 
 
 Monday morning, May first, eighteen fifty- 
 four. The merry blooming month of May has 
 arrived and nature, shaking off the drowsi- 
 
 62 
 
ness of Winter appears in all its beauty and 
 splendor. A carpet of verdure variegated by 
 the innumerable hues and shades of myriads 
 of flowers, shrubs and trees, spreads over the 
 crust of reanimated Mother Earth — which scen- 
 ery, combined with the beautiful sky of a Cali- 
 fornia heaven, grants a sublime sight to the 
 beholder and admirer of the garden of nature. 
 In gazing upon these fields, hills and dales, 
 all in their bloom and vernal beauty; upon the 
 pure sky that overspreads and adds to their 
 grandeur — the mind gradually loses itself in 
 meditation and deep thought. Minor objects 
 lose their hold upon us and higher, nobler 
 sentiments take their place. In such sacred 
 moments the empire of the mind reigns and we 
 truly live. The grand and wonderful effect of 
 a great unknown first cause meets us at every 
 side — and while admiring the former we won- 
 der at the magnitude and goodness of the latter. 
 We try to penetrate the darkness which veils 
 that unknown from our sight and behold the 
 "prima facie — till now only known by its reflec- 
 tions. Besides this desire to find and look upon 
 the omnipotent, other thoughts and images 
 rise before our mind's eye. While looking at 
 some green and blooming spot, moments of 
 the past or rather, recollections associated 
 with those gone-by hours, those blooming 
 fields, crowd in. We think of the innocent joys 
 of those playfellows that loved us, of a kind 
 
 63 
 
Mother that received us when we, flushed and 
 exhausted arrived home to refresh and rest our- 
 selves, who would lay her hand upon our fore- 
 head to dry the perspiration and brush aside 
 our hair to restore our infant beauty, and, with 
 those benign eyes looking upon us, would 
 with her lips which always were so fond of 
 kissing — express her fears that we would over- 
 heat ourselves and take sick. I would begin to 
 cry and promise to be more careful in the future. 
 Yes, these are recollections which will cheer 
 the darkest and increase the fullness of the 
 happiest moments of our life. 
 
 May nineteenth, eighteen fifty-four. I am 
 well once more, enjoying the blessedness derived 
 from such a state. I have just returned after a 
 day's work and having an hour to spare from 
 this to dark I thought to dedicate the same to 
 scrawl down a few lines in these memoirs. 
 
 Although this is early May — the middle of 
 Spring, we have already the warmer days of 
 August and the ground which had hardly got 
 a good soaking during Winter is dry now as 
 ever it gets in our Northern States. So with 
 the vegetables. The flora and fauna of the 
 country, which have already seen their in- 
 fancy — although now everything is verdant and 
 budding — in but a short month more will 
 pass away and the green will change to yellow, 
 the bud to the ripened fruit and all nature put 
 on the attire of mellow Fall, and be finally re- 
 
 64 
 
&*<t^4* J gyV* sT~~ f >£€^L~«J*^p . SCST r/*^€ j^^t^ 
 ^ /& <£*ts4ffc est" &f ^ <r> C>€^ : €2^ZZ<i^\ 
 
 
 •-^x-yT-^^.. 
 
 / 
 
suscitated by deluges of rain which pour down 
 in Winter in this country. If ever by some nat- 
 ural change this country shall be blessed by 
 seasonable rains through the Summer, it will 
 undoubtedly exert a most beneficial influence 
 upon the soil of the land and make agricultural 
 business more permanent and profitable and 
 vastly benefit the mining community and make 
 living itself more pleasant and comfortable 
 on the shores of the Pacific. There is a certain 
 fact which manifests itself in new settled coun- 
 tries — namely, that the amount of rain which 
 falls every year increases in proportion to the 
 cultivation and irrigation of the soil. At Salt 
 Lake, and so here, when settlers first arrived 
 rain was hardly known to fall but has increased 
 in amount every year since that period. This 
 is a fact experience has taught us to hold true 
 although its cause is hardly known. 
 
 The merry month of May has passed away; 
 June holds reign over prairie, hills and dales. 
 The weather in general is just warm enough to 
 make it pleasant to work — which in itself is 
 pain enough without having it doubled by ex- 
 posure to a scorching sun. A pleasant breeze 
 being wafted up from the smooth waters of 
 the Pacific moderates the climate to a genial 
 warmth which only for want of sufficient rain 
 would be as beautiful as any person could wish 
 for. But from a want of this infinitely useful 
 element at the proper season of the year, the 
 
 65 
 
soil, otherwise fertile produces but little vege- 
 tation. July generally sees this dying off for 
 want of moisture. Still there are many fertile 
 spots in the valleys watered by mountain 
 streams which intersect the country — heading 
 in the snow clad mountains and pouring their 
 icy waters like veins into the heart of the coun- 
 try to give vigor and health to the country in 
 their proximity. A traveler therefore can see 
 in one day's journey and less both the budding 
 and refreshing Spring and the yellow Autumn, 
 the former in the valleys, the latter in the higher 
 parts of the land. It is on highlands that these 
 lines are written — with a valley spread at the 
 foot of it, which extends to the Coast Range 
 of mountains whose outlines I can plainly trace 
 on the horizon and this minute its highest 
 peaks stand out in bold relief, illuminated by 
 the setting sun close upon their brow. Ten 
 minutes more — they will hide it from view 
 where, in the pacific waters of the broad Ocean 
 it will seek a resting place after its daily journey 
 through the heavens, to rise with new splendor 
 and magnificence in the morning. To many 
 thousands who gaze upon the rising and setting 
 of the sun its movement from East to West is 
 still a great mystery. 
 
 September twelfth, eighteen fifty-four. Over 
 three months have passed since I made my last 
 entry in this journal and not only have I 
 changed my residence but my profession. I 
 
 66 
 
have exchanged the miner for the confinements 
 of the Store Room to which I intend to adhere 
 in the future. 
 
 July and August passed in indolence and 
 mental indifference. It is but a few days back 
 that I left off mining and find myself now 
 comfortably seated in my store writing these 
 notes. This place — French Hill — is within one- 
 half mile of Camp Secco which was destroyed 
 by fire about three weeks ago, which however 
 by the enterprise of its inhabitants is rapidly 
 building up and this time is an improved place. 
 The place of present residence is rapidly spring- 
 ing up into a little village as yet nameless 
 from its recent date and gives fair promise 
 towards a prosperous business. That this may 
 be the case is my earnest wish, as I hope to 
 realize if no unforeseen mishaps befall me — 
 enough to leave California for a better home far 
 to the East. 
 
 February, eighteen fifty-five. Four months 
 have passed away since I made the last notes 
 but although the above dates indicate the 
 Winter season when in the Eastern States snow 
 and frost are plenty, we still enjoy as beautiful 
 warm and dry weather as one can wish for — no 
 snow, nor cold chilly days but pleasant weather 
 in their place. As miners mainly depend upon 
 the rain to wash their dirt, hove up throughout 
 a period of nine months, a failure of it in Winter 
 when it is anxiously looked for is a great disap- 
 
 67 
 
pointment to the miners all over the country. 
 When mining is stopped, everything else is 
 dull and depressed. We may have some rain 
 yet for California presents such a strange in- 
 stance of change that it is hard to tell when it 
 will come. It is this morning cloudy and has 
 every indication of rain. Three or four weeks 
 of even moderate rain would furnish a great 
 deal of water — the great commodity for the 
 miner. 
 
 There appears to be at present a general de- 
 pression in business all over the country, 
 money tight and provisions dear and labor 
 scarce. Heavy failures happen almost daily 
 in the Atlantic Cities. Houses which enjoyed 
 the greatest public confidence and patronage 
 are suspending payment, not being able to pay 
 their liabilities by a fearful amount. Even 
 Page and Bacon, one of the best and wealthi- 
 est banking houses in the Union, has suspended 
 payment which, however, is more ascribed to 
 the detention of gold shipments from California 
 than to deficiency of funds. The main cause 
 for all this embarrassment in the money mar- 
 ket appears to lie in the heavy export of gold to 
 England in exchange for English manufactures 
 and in the extravagance of our bankers, brokers 
 and merchant princes in the last ten years. 
 Nothing but a stoppage in the import of foreign 
 manufacture and a more industrious sort of 
 living will save this country from bankruptcy. 
 
 68 
 
Even here, the great source of wealth for the 
 last six years, the pressure is felt. Gold diggings 
 are getting scarcer all the time and as living is 
 almost as dear as in forty-nine and fifty when 
 it was easier to make an ounce than it is at the 
 present day to make a dollar — it is easy to ima- 
 gine how oppressive the hard times must be. 
 The business I am engaged in at the present 
 yields but a very small profit for everything 
 in the mercantile line is high in the market and 
 as miners reap but a very scant harvest for 
 their labor one has to sell just as low as admis- 
 sible. Profits therefore are but small. Still, 
 making a little is better than making nothing 
 at all and as long as this can be done I intend to 
 stop here. 
 
 March second. Again I pick up the pen to 
 make a few notes in this diary to keep the links 
 in the chain of events which happen in this dull 
 life of mine. While writing these lines the cool 
 breezes wafted from the broad Pacific stir the 
 warm air which was throughout the day oppres- 
 sive and in the hours of twilight grant comfort 
 and ease to the inhabitants of hot climates. 
 The weather now is already as hot as it ever 
 gets in the middle of the Summer at home. Yes 
 — I believe that the mercury is higher now than 
 it ever gets there. This being only March, 
 when they at home have still snow storms and 
 frost, we have beautiful Spring and nature is 
 already attired in her sprightly dress of green 
 
 69 
 
variegated with flowers of all hues and shapes. 
 Trees assume their verdant garments and along- 
 side of streamlets adorn the garden of nature. 
 Oh ! nature, grand and beautiful art thou ! Beau- 
 tiful in every scene that meets our eye — the 
 streamlet which meanders through pleasant 
 valleys by picturesque hills ornamented by 
 vines, with the contented peasant gathering 
 the grapes. Mountains with their highest 
 peaks covered with everlasting snows meet our 
 looks in the far off horizon and crown with 
 sublimity the rural beauties of the hills and 
 vales at their foot. Man himself feels stronger 
 and of higher spirits in the Spring of the year, 
 the purity of the air and the balmy smell 
 which emanates from flowers, shrubs and trees 
 exhilarate the soul and body of every animated 
 organic being. In time all this changes to yellow 
 as their life runs out and their vitality, their 
 sweet smell are dried up by the tropical heat 
 of the South to rest and gather life and nutri- 
 ment anew from Mother Earth. 
 
 Man, too, undergoes this change that every- 
 thing in nature is subjected to. His life com- 
 pares favourably with the changes in the vege- 
 table world. First, tender and weak he gains 
 care and attention, strength of body and mind. 
 In the Springtime of life, his beauty is of the 
 noblest kind and life is constant happiness. 
 As time rolls on his body and mind mature, 
 he becomes wiser and abler and in this estate 
 
 70 
 
of manhood acts and operates for himself and 
 fellowmen. This is the most useful part of 
 man's career and as he grows older he loses the 
 vigour he formerly possessed and at the end — 
 in the Winter of his life droops down, grows 
 weaker and weaker until finally his career is run 
 and he has to join Mother Earth again to serve 
 some new purpose in the organization of nature. 
 There is one great invention which will ever 
 illumine the time between the Dark Ages and 
 the present epoch. An invention which is as 
 remarkable for its intensity of light as the 
 Middle Ages for their impenetrable darkness 
 and consequent superstition. This is the in- 
 vention of printing by John Guttenburg of 
 Metz in Germany in fourteen hundred and forty. 
 By one sublime thought which struck the mind 
 of a single man or more properly, by the divine 
 inspiration of a single human being, benefits as 
 great and incalculable were bestowed upon 
 mankind as universal space itself is infinite and 
 beyond human calculation. Before that time 
 all learning was limited to one class — the Clergy 
 of all countries, who had it in their power to 
 devote time which was at their own disposal 
 to literary pursuits, in which they had great 
 assistance in the manuscripts of former ages, 
 therefore enjoyed already although to a limited 
 extent the blessings which the art of printing 
 afterwards bestowed more universally upon the 
 mass of mankind. 
 
 71 
 
We all know now that as much as man is 
 superior and master of all other animals, so 
 is the intelligent and well informed, master of 
 the ignorant and superstitious. The priests 
 therefore of former ages — since they possessed 
 knowledge above the rest of mankind were to 
 a great extent the masters and in consequence 
 ruled with a stronger rod than ever any mon- 
 arch ruled his subject since printing and conse- 
 quent knowledge became more diffused among 
 the masses of mankind. When books, in con- 
 sequence of their cheapness became plentier 
 and the masses became possessed of the same — 
 light began to penetrate the utter darkness 
 which formerly reigned supreme in the mind of 
 man and in a comparatively short period of 
 time since the death of this inventor, the human 
 family has made a more rapid and greater pro- 
 gress in science and useful knowledge than was 
 made in all time before that great event. 
 
 March twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and 
 fifty-eight. Left this day Camp Secco — where I 
 had been stopping for three years doing busi- 
 ness, such as groceries and miners' implements. 
 My success has been pretty good — might how- 
 ever have been better. Still I don't complain. 
 Although I have not made as much as many a 
 one has done in the same length of time, still 
 I am satisfied. 
 
 The time while there passed dully enough 
 with me, arising from the want of desirable 
 
 72 
 
company and the non-existence of any places 
 of amusement. I had lots of time to myself 
 and had I been so disposed, had I possessed 
 different mental stamina, force, energy and 
 perseverance, I might easily have acquired a 
 store of useful knowledge. But it is of no use a- 
 croaking now. The time has fled and in place 
 of enjoying at present a cultivated mind I 
 hardly realize ideas enough to make me sen- 
 sible that I am an intelligent, animated being. 
 And it always will be so with me. I think nature 
 is more to blame for it than I myself. Had I 
 been endowed with Genius great, with even the 
 present balance of mind I think I should have 
 made a great man. I tried once, years ago, 
 to obtain a lofty position in science, labored 
 hard and long and what was the result? A 
 machine capable of a certain amount of labor 
 laid out for it. Nothing else. I had no thought 
 nor ideas of my own of the least practical use. 
 I had better then be satisfied. Although I might 
 possess a great deal more, still I don't think 
 that it would materially benefit my happiness 
 here. 
 
 April twentieth, eighteen hundred and fifty- 
 eight. This day at ten o'clock, I left the wharf 
 of San Francisco on the steamboat Golden Age 
 for the Atlantic States — for my home in old 
 Virginia and my friends. 
 
 I came to this country on the twentieth day 
 of August eighteen hundred and fifty-two — 
 
 73 
 
making the time that I have been here, five 
 years and eight months to a day. My success 
 here, if not what it might have been, still 
 yielded me a small capital — enough to start 
 me in business most anywhere and consequently 
 by proper management, diligence and industry, 
 I shall be enabled to get along in this world 
 comfortably. Had I mentally as well improved 
 as I did my pecuniary circumstances, I should 
 be well enough satisfied. This, however, is not 
 the case and for this reason and this reason 
 alone am I sorry that I ever came to California. 
 Had I remained at home, associated as I was 
 with men of intelligence and in a pursuit where 
 mental effort was required I would now un- 
 questionably be a smarter if not equally as 
 rich a man. My mind, although naturally 
 sterile, by proper care and pains would have 
 been cultivated; my taste beautified; my feel- 
 ings and sentiments ennobled. In short, I 
 believe that I would have been a wiser, better, 
 and in consequence a happier man than I am 
 now. Still, courage, "faint heart," the future 
 may even yet bestow on you content and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 I am tracing these lines in the steerage on 
 board the steamer, looking through a port hole 
 onto the wide dark blue ocean of the Pacific, 
 which is laid before my eyes in every direction 
 to the far off horizon. How monotonous it 
 seems to me. There are no hills nor mountains 
 
 74 
 
in the background of the vast rolling Pacific 
 before me. No trees, bushes, plants of any kind; 
 nor is there an animated being to be seen — 
 unless once in a while a shark or whale will 
 show themselves to our greedy eyes which long 
 for something else than boundless waters. 
 
 There is something fearful in the fact that 
 there is nothing between destruction and the 
 ocean tossed mariner but some frail planks which 
 half a dozen accidents may dislodge and send 
 him to the deep bottom of the pitiless sea. 
 Such is man in his wild career in pursuit of 
 wealth and power that he will entrust his life, 
 his all, to a frail bark which the winds may toss 
 on rocks and breakers from which there is 
 no salvation. These things are painfully clear 
 to me now that there is no escape from them 
 and though I am not absolutely afraid, still I 
 know that there are many chances which may 
 destroy us. Who knows — many a stout vessel 
 with passengers ever as sanguine of a safe voyage 
 left a safe haven never to reach the place of 
 their destination. This may be our — yes, my — 
 fate. Still I will hope for the best. Hope that 
 our voyage across the treacherous ocean may 
 be a safe one and carry us to a safe Port at 
 Panama. We have thus far enjoyed fine weather, 
 a calm sea, and I have enjoyed thus far tolerable 
 good health. 
 
 Distance from San Francisco to Panama, 
 three thousand, two hundred and sixty-two miles. 
 
 75 
 
Saturday, April twenty-fifth. The coast was 
 out of sight since the second morning and reap- 
 peared this morning, running for miles almost 
 level then suddenly turning abruptly into 
 craggy headlands, standing out grotesque in 
 the background of the otherwise monotonous 
 ocean. And this is certainly a great relief after 
 gazing day after day upon the same far extend- 
 ing, swaying, rippling ocean, with nothing for 
 the eye after exhausting the utmost power of 
 vision to rest on, but a hazy horizon touching 
 the blue expanse of waters. 
 
 The weather has been, up to this, clear and 
 pleasant, perhaps a little cold at first but now 
 really very charming. The sea has been tol- 
 erably quiet and smooth so we have had but 
 little sickness on board — less than I expected 
 to see. How old I am getting though. While 
 writing this, my feet pain me which has been 
 the case for the last four months. Also my 
 teeth which are mostly decayed and even my 
 energies are dormant. I, who once set myself 
 the great task of studying a profession — now can 
 hardly even concentrate enough thought to 
 note down a few sensible ideas. Yes, I am surely 
 grown old very fast in the last three years. 
 I can feel both in mind and body. The latter 
 is invariably inclined to indolence. The former 
 to downright dormancy. Oh, could I regain 
 the play of my imagination, the buoyancy of 
 thought which I once possessed; could I possess 
 
 76 
 
myself of ambition, pride, to stimulate me, all 
 yet might be right and it is to have the former 
 forced upon me by circumstances more or less 
 that I reseek the scenes of my former home, 
 hoping that in the wild and exciting race there 
 for wealth and position I too may be roused 
 enough to take a share. 
 
 April twenty-sixth. We passed Cape St. 
 Lucas on the night of the twenty-fourth and 
 ran yesterday across the mouth of the Gulf of 
 California which I believe is here one hundred 
 and sixty miles wide. While doing so we lost 
 sight of the coast which, however, reappeared 
 this morning at daylight. The coast here pre- 
 sents a succession of ridges rising higher back 
 towards the land — the whole, however, broken 
 up into abrupt peaks rising from four to five 
 hundred feet above the sea level. Occasionally 
 a high cliff stands boldly out into the sea — its 
 foot washed by the eternal breakers. The whole 
 of them are covered with a short low shrubbery 
 which is now colored in a reddish dress being in 
 blossom at present. 
 
 After running down the coast about fifty 
 miles, we doubled a headland and turned into 
 a short bay at the East side of which is the vil- 
 lage of Mansenilla inhabited by Mexicans who 
 under supervision of Government officers carry 
 on silver mining here. The appearance of every- 
 thing here, the woods, houses and men would 
 indicate that we are in a warmer climate, if 
 
 77 
 
the weather did not. The people themselves 
 wear clothing, as may be judged by its scanti- 
 ness, to hide their nakedness rather than for 
 protection against the climate. Their color is 
 slightly coppery, almost as much so as our Cali- 
 fornia Indians. Their houses too are more 
 built as a shelter from the tropical sun than 
 against the rigours of a cold country, they 
 being the roughest, simplest kind of huts built 
 out of timber and brush. We lay here about an 
 hour during which time we sent two passengers 
 ashore in one of our boats, while a number of 
 natives in dugouts swarmed around the vessel, 
 called out, I presume, more on account of the 
 novelty of our presence than any other notion. 
 
 We are now on our onward voyage, standing 
 out to sea while the coast range of mountains 
 is still at our left. Yesterday being Sunday and 
 having several soul savers on board we had of 
 course preaching — and enough of it — as much 
 as three times. I think were we all put through 
 the same task every day for the next three 
 months it would either make us the most ortho- 
 dox Christians or else disgusted with Chris- 
 tianity. The whole of them, the sermons, 
 amounted to the same old rigmarole, — believe 
 and be saved — disbelieve and you are doomed 
 to hell and everlasting punishment. 
 
 We arrived at Acapulco this day, the twenty- 
 eighth of April. This is a Spanish town, situ- 
 ated on one of the best harbors on the Pacific 
 
 78 
 
Coast. It forms a perfect elbow in shape and 
 is therefore perfectly water locked and on that 
 account offers safe mooring to vessels. How 
 strange the contrast between a Spanish and 
 an American town — the latter enjoying all the 
 health and vigor and activity of youth, pro- 
 gress. In the former it is an eternal stand still, 
 no activity of any kind, no display of the least 
 spirit or energy is to be met with here. Action, 
 perpetual action, is the characteristic of the 
 American. The want of all life, of the least 
 healthy action so necessary to the existence of 
 a people is to be found in Mexico. They, the 
 people, are lazy, indolent by nature. All they 
 ever strive for is to acquire enough of the sim- 
 plest necessaries of life and they are satisfied 
 if not happy. Toil is unknown to them and 
 leisure is their status quo. They show this 
 fact in everything — in the way they dress, 
 wearing nothing but just enough to cover 
 their nakedness. Their homes are builded of 
 mud, covered with old fashioned tiles or with 
 straw, and present more the appearance of 
 fortified places than of dwellings. They (the 
 houses) most all have piazzas where the greater 
 portion of the inhabitants pass — in smoking 
 and talking and sleeping — their days, yes, the 
 greater portion of their life. The streets are 
 made of sandstone slabs or else hewn in the 
 same as it lies. As there is never hardly any 
 rain here, and the town being built on solid 
 
 79 
 
sandstone foundations, they are of course per- 
 fectly clean which, as already intimated, is 
 owing more to the nature of the site than to 
 the cleanliness and industry of the people. 
 
 The town is situated on the North West side 
 of the Bay and consists of several streets filled 
 up by mud houses as already stated. North 
 from the town, about one-half mile distant, 
 lies the fort on a slight elevation sloping on 
 the East toward the sea. The site is a very fav- 
 ourable one as it can command the harbor with 
 its guns, having enough of the latter to sink 
 any vessel which may try to force its entrance 
 in time of war. The fort itself is builded in 
 the shape of a square, with several embattle- 
 ments. Its walls rise about thirty feet from 
 the bottom of the trench which is of a depth 
 of about ten feet and surrounds the whole. 
 The entrance is afforded by a drawbridge 
 through a door fronting the town. The soldiers 
 are but a sorry set and I doubt, very little cal- 
 culated to do war time service. I judge their 
 bravery by the general character of the Mexi- 
 can people — which I know in the main to be 
 cowardly. I presume the soldiers — which are 
 by the by, the most ragged set I have ever seen, 
 having neither uniform nor even shoes, march- 
 ing and countermarching like a lot of beggars 
 on the street with no military rearing whatever 
 — will be the same. If I am allowed to judge 
 Mexico by this town of Acapulco — which has 
 
 80 
 
all the advantage of a most favoured situation 
 as seaport and in consequence is well fitted for 
 commerce, it is certainly a most neglected coun- 
 try and with the resources it possesses both in 
 mineral and agricultural wealth it cannot be 
 doubted but what it would soon in the hands 
 of our people be one of the richest as well as 
 loveliest countries in the world. This, however, 
 seems to be its ultimate fate. Years may inter- 
 vene but it must most surely eventually give 
 way to the rapid strides of an onward moving 
 civilization. When that day will come — that 
 Mexico shall add another star to our illustrious 
 country — is not for me to say. I hope, however, 
 for the sake of the Mexican people themselves 
 and for the sake of the numerous resources the 
 country offers that it may soon come. 
 
 We left Acapulco Bay about five o'clock this 
 afternoon and stood out to sea. We are now 
 within three days of Panama, in fact nearer, 
 but it will take three days to make it. 
 
 This is the first day of May. Lovely May has 
 come around once more and Spring with its 
 fine bracing breezes has set in. We are even 
 now within ten degrees of the Equator, enjoy- 
 ing the benefit of it in the Trades which blow 
 from the South East. The next morning after 
 we left Acapulco, I believe, we found ourselves 
 in the Gulf of Tehuantepeck which was toler- 
 able rough. I was taken sea-sick, that most 
 terrible of all sicknesses. After three days' 
 
 81 
 
suffering, I have gotten better. Still, even now 
 I feel the sensation of it in my throat. Still, I 
 think that I have seen the worst of it. If so, I 
 shall not lament it, as I think it will secure me 
 good health for a while. 
 
 Although in the tropics, we have enjoyed till 
 now cool and extremely pleasant weather with 
 beautiful star and moonlight nights and the 
 bright expanse of ocean round us, with our vessel 
 like a thing of life moving along upon its bosom, 
 and in the dark, at twilight before the moon is 
 up, what splendid sight is revealed to the trav- 
 eller of the sea. I mean the bright brilliant 
 sparks and flashes which emit from the spray- 
 ing sheets which our cutwater sends off at both 
 sides of our vessel — caused by friction upon 
 the phosphorescent matter contained in the 
 water of the ocean. 
 
 May second. This morning the land, consisting 
 of detached ranges of mountains, again came 
 in sight, and now, five o'clock P.M. we are 
 abreast of an island to the left. This isle is 
 very heavily timbered; the whole of it is a 
 mountain of about one hundred and fifty feet 
 high with a small point of level country at the 
 Eastern end of it. 
 
 May third. We came up to another island 
 this morning, thickly covered with timber and 
 vegetation of tropical growth. We kept now 
 in sight of land all the time, numbers of islands 
 being to our left and towards evening the Bay 
 
 82 
 
of Panama came in sight. This Bay is of large 
 dimensions and very secure, being well shel- 
 tered by islands and the main coast. We passed 
 Tobanga Island where the W. S. M. Company 
 has a station where they repair and clean their 
 vessels when at Panama. We entered the Bay 
 and dropped anchor twenty minutes past seven 
 o'clock A.M. The next morning at four we 
 took the ferry boat for the wharfs, arrived there, 
 took the cars across the Isthmus of Darien to 
 Aspinwall on the Gulf of Mexico. All the sec- 
 tion of country we crossed over on the cars 
 offered a most beautiful sight. It is more or less 
 mountainous and covered with one emerald 
 sheet of thick and almost impenetrable highly 
 perfumed tropical vegetation. I could not dis- 
 cover any trees nor plants of the moderate zones 
 — all being the products of the tropics. This 
 country, but for the extreme heat and the 
 malaria it must necessarily create from its 
 numerous swamps, would be almost a Paradise 
 to live in. If Americans should ever possess it 
 and be able to live there, they in truth will 
 make it indeed what it seems intended for by 
 nature — one of the loveliest spots the world 
 knows. Aspinwall is a new place and traces 
 its origin to the discovery of the gold mines 
 in California and the subsequent travel across 
 the Isthmus. It is principally inhabited by 
 natives of Central America, some French and 
 some Americans. The latter, however, being the 
 
 83 
 
only influential portion of the community. 
 They have made it and named it what it is 
 this day. They own the railroad and a large 
 depot three hundred by one hundred feet, fire 
 proof, and a very commodious dock for the 
 handling of the mail steamers and offices to 
 carry on their business. 
 
 We left the docks of Aspinwall about four 
 o'clock. The trip across the Isthmus occupied 
 about five hours, so that we got to Aspinwall 
 about twelve and had from then till four at the 
 latter place. 
 
 May fifth. The Star of the West, the boat I 
 am now on, is not near as large nor as good a 
 boat as the steamer on the other side. Still, 
 if she only brings us safe to New York I shall 
 be satisfied well enough. I perceive by the latest 
 New York news that yellow fever broke out on 
 the U. S. S. frigate Susquehanna and at the 
 Central American Port of St. James. If I dread 
 anything, I dread that and I hope to God it 
 will not appear on board of this bark. If it 
 should be doomed to that, God only knows 
 what its effect might be. I must hope for the 
 best. We are only about a week's sail from 
 New York. Still, how uncertain is our arrival 
 there considering the numerous accidents which 
 we are apt to encounter, which may finish our 
 existence before we once more set our feet on 
 blessed Mother Earth. 
 
 Distance across the Isthmus from Panama 
 
 84 
 
to Aspinwall on Navy Bay (Colon) forty-five 
 miles. Distance to New York one thousand 
 one hundred miles. 
 
 Another bright day has risen over the water 
 and a slight breeze stiffens our sails, carrying 
 us homewards. I am still in bad health, my 
 stomach being completely deranged and in con- 
 sequence can't enjoy the trip as well as I other- 
 wise might were I in good health. 
 
 The steamboat New Grenada which started 
 one hour before us from Aspinwall has been 
 more or less in sight since we left that Port and 
 now is about ten miles astern of us. Last eve- 
 ning about five o'clock P.M. we passed the 
 island of Providence to our right. This Island 
 like all the rest I have seen on this trip is moun- 
 tainous and thickly timbered. As there were 
 fires on the coast I presume it must be inhabited 
 and there are undoubtedly spots on it under 
 cultivation. All the country in these lower 
 latitudes is very fertile, producing luxurious 
 growths of most all the tropical fruits. 
 
 Providence is about two hundred and forty 
 miles North East of North from Aspinwall. This 
 being the course we have steered since we left 
 there. Now we are steering due North. 
 
 May ninth. In the evening of the seventh we 
 came in sight of the lighthouse of Saint Antoin — 
 the S. W. Cape of Cuba. This night and the 
 next day, the eighth, we cruised along side of 
 Cuba for some three hundred miles. We came 
 
 85 
 
opposite to Havana about five o'clock on the 
 eighth. Havana is builded close to the shore, 
 seemingly resting upon the water. The ground 
 back of it is higher and portions of the town 
 are builded there. The main city, however, is 
 at the water's edge. Morro Castle, the fort at 
 the Harbor, is at the North East part of the 
 City. We sailed within about five miles of 
 the City. The above were all the points I 
 could scan at this distance. Having struck the 
 Gulf Stream, the sea became rougher and I, 
 in consequence, sick again and feel miserable 
 while scribbling this. I have the more reason 
 to wish myself safe on shore at New York, 
 having ascertained today the fact of the unsea- 
 worthiness of our boat. The Florida reefs — 
 keys — came in sight this forenoon and are still 
 in sight. They are low lands, or rather are 
 elevated reefs, thinly timbered and dreaded, 
 on account of the reefs and rocks in the neigh- 
 borhood, by the mariner. 
 
 We arrived on the night of Wednesday, May 
 twelfth, in sight of the Long Island and Sandy 
 Hook Lights and after having taken on a Pilot 
 we entered Sandy Hook and passing into New 
 York Harbor arrived at the city about five 
 o'clock in the morning of the thirteenth of 
 May. 
 
 Here then I am in New York — the Empire 
 City of America — the greatest commercial port 
 in the American Continent and the World. Its 
 
 86 
 
tonnage is larger than that of any other Port 
 city I believe in the World. While it is con- 
 nected by the Ocean with all Foreign Countries, 
 it is likewise so with all the important cities 
 of the United States by railroads and steamboat 
 conveyance. 
 
 I remained at New York till the twenty-first 
 instant. During my stay here I visited the 
 different theaters. The Laura Keene on Broad- 
 way was the handsomest I had ever seen in 
 America, and what was still better, the acting 
 was equally good and, as the building, the best 
 I had ever the pleasure to see in this country. 
 The Crystal Palace I saw from the outside only. 
 The whole is built of iron. Its model is chaste 
 and displays a good deal of art and beauty. 
 The Palace is surrounded by an iron railing 
 and between it and the building intervenes a 
 beautiful green sward. East from the Palace 
 is the reservoir of the great Croton water works 
 which supply the whole of New York with 
 water which is brought some twenty-five or 
 thirty miles to this grand reservoir, built of 
 solid masonry and occupying a large area of 
 ground. From here the water is distributed 
 over the whole city for drinking, culinary and 
 manufacturing purposes. Another place of 
 great celebrity, Barnum's Museum, of Ameri- 
 can wide fame, was also visited by me. Here 
 are stored in rich profusion treasures of the ani- 
 mal world both of land and sea. Also a good 
 
 87 
 
gathering of antiquities of almost all portions 
 of the world, and several statues of fame and 
 renown. Among them are the wax models of 
 the Emperor of Russia, Joseph of Austria, 
 Napoleon III and Queen Victoria of England, 
 and last but not least Kossuth and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte and the notorious Mrs. Cunningham 
 in whose eyes passion and crime but great 
 beauty is also written. Among the persons of 
 higher renown is Mary the Mother of Jesus. 
 Animals of all kinds and species are amassed 
 here in great variety too numerous to mention. 
 They are mostly stuffed except numerous fresh 
 and salt water fishes which are kept alive here 
 enjoying their native element in large tanks. 
 The large boa constrictor and another large 
 snake are also kept living here by means of 
 artificial heat supplied them. Among the an- 
 tiques are coins of centuries long since passed. 
 American state documents of the last century, 
 flags and arms of the Revolutionary and Indian 
 wars. Among the latter a number of tomahawks, 
 spears, battleaxes, etc. Curiosities from China 
 and Japan are also here in this great mulium 
 in parvo. Also a large metallurgical collection 
 with minerals of all kinds. A Panorama with 
 representation of many beautiful scenes from 
 Italy, France and Austria is found here. The 
 pictures of the celebrated Generals and States- 
 men of American History as those of celebrated 
 men and women of the present day adorn its 
 
 88 
 
walls. The exposition in this Museum is so 
 grand and my survey of its treasures was so 
 short and superficial that I am not able to 
 relate and specify them any plainer or with 
 greater accuracy. I was, however, well pleased 
 the few hours I remained there and considered 
 that time spent to exceeding great purpose. 
 
 New York has many beautiful buildings and 
 the Fifth Avenue is a street of palaces and in 
 my opinion compares favourably with any street 
 of any city in the World. Here reside the rich- 
 est people in the city. None but nabobs being 
 able to exist in the air of this moneyed Ameri- 
 can aristocracy. If the insides of these dwell- 
 ings enjoy corresponding happiness with all 
 these luxurious surroundings is not for the 
 people to know. Still, as nothing in this world 
 is all blessedness and sunshine, one may well 
 suppose that too, in these grand dwellings 
 wretchedness and heartburnings may be met. 
 The great enterprise of New York at present 
 upon which succeeding ages will bestow all 
 gratitude is the building of a grand Park where 
 the thousands of this city — the rich, the poor, 
 the highly born and lowly may pass moments 
 of pleasure and rest from the noise and tur- 
 moil of the city and acquire strength and 
 cheerfulness for the hard tasks of every day life. 
 
 I left New York City on the twenty-first 
 instant for Philadelphia — the Quaker City — 
 where I arrived at four o'clock P.M. This, 
 
which I always supposed to be the handsomest 
 city in America, I am sorry that I am compelled 
 to state, disappointed all my bright anticipa- 
 tion of its beauties. It is true, being consider- 
 ably exhausted by much traveling and having 
 my thirst for sight-seeing considerably abated 
 at New York, I was not exactly in a condition 
 to receive grand and stunning impressions. Had 
 I arrived here first, fresh from the mountains 
 of California instead of New York, Philadelphia 
 might have impressed me with feelings of 
 admiration and satiated my desire to view 
 architectural and artistic beauties to its full. 
 As it is — New York, had the precedence in my 
 visit and with the remembrance of its grandeur 
 fresh upon my mind, I am obliged to admit 
 that the City of Penn fell short in its treasures 
 of beauty of what I hoped and wished to find. 
 Here, however, as is universally the case, are 
 exceptions to be met. Only had I hoped the 
 inverted to be the case — namely that beauties 
 might be the rule and common appearance the 
 exception. I refer to the Institution vdiich will 
 for a far off future immortalize the name it 
 bears — I mean Girard College. This is as far as 
 I have knowledge, the handsomest and grace- 
 fullest edifice in America. At the time of day 
 I went to visit it, I could not get admittance and 
 my view of it was in consequence indistinct from 
 the walls and distance that intervened. Still, 
 I saw enough fully to sustain the above opinion. 
 
 90 
 
The edifice is large in size, surrounded by a 
 portico ornamented by Corinthian Columns of 
 the chastest workmanship. The material which 
 composes its grand walls is I believe, fine 
 marble. This, the main edifice, has two addi- 
 tional buildings on each side — two for the male 
 and two for the female pupils. Beautiful 
 grounds, planted with handsome trees and flower 
 beds intersected by gravel walks surround the 
 buildings. The whole again is enclosed by a 
 big wall to keep the outer world from intruding 
 and marring the quiet and beauty within. 
 Girard, the founder, once poor but rich in 
 thought, energy, and perseverance, accumulated 
 by well applied industry and diligence a princely 
 fortune of which he the greater portion, $800,- 
 000, bestowed upon the orphans of Philadelphia 
 in the most generous and useful way in this, 
 the greatest American Orphan College. He, 
 in his will forbade the introduction of any 
 religion for educational purposes and also, 
 the entrance of any of its apostles within the 
 walls. And who will blame him for this sweeping 
 and, by many condemned as sinful, prescrip- 
 tion? It was not the want of faith of the man 
 in an all ruling Deity. No, but quite otherwise, 
 his high regard for the same, which guided him 
 in this action. Knowing as we all know of the 
 great variety of religious communities, all 
 differing with one another, yes, in many cases 
 condemning one another, he thought well and 
 
 91 
 
justly so to keep the infant mind free of the 
 different feuds and enmities of the different sects. 
 His purpose was to give them an enlightened 
 education, to acquaint their mind with facts, 
 with events and their causes and effects — 
 so that when ripened and matured into men and 
 women free from all prejudices, they might 
 themselves be enabled by pure and cultivated 
 thought to form a just and enlightened opinion 
 of their own about religion and its principles 
 and aim and purpose. Is it not better so to 
 have the mind of the to-man-grown boy and 
 the mind of the girl who has reached woman- 
 hood unfettered by stubborn prejudices, per- 
 haps with hatred against its fellow creatures, 
 than to have it in its infancy so directed as to 
 make it almost impossible to allow them differ- 
 ent views and opinions from those early im- 
 planted upon the infant mind? I approve the 
 motive and can appreciate the intelligence and 
 foresight of the mind of its originator. Honor 
 and blessing be to him — Girard — one of the 
 great benefactors of the poor. 
 
 From here I continued my journey by the 
 P. C. R. R. via Harrisburg over the Alleghenys 
 to Pittsburg, and from there took the steamer 
 to Wheeling the home of my brother Frederic 
 and his family. I parted from them, New Year 
 eighteen fifty -one and as I, in the Spring of the 
 same year, left for California from which I 
 have only now returned, I had not seen them 
 
 92 
 
since. My arrival seemed to give them great 
 pleasure and all subsequent appearances seemed 
 to warrant the genuineness of their display 
 of affectionate feelings. I trust this may really 
 be the case. That sincerity and not an un- 
 nobler motive was at the bottom of the lavished 
 kindness. I know the value of a true, sincere, 
 noble affection and love so that I am always prone 
 to suspect its genuineness when too freely and 
 plentifully offered. I still trust it may have been 
 real in this case. Brother Henry who resides 
 at Sunfish, Munro Co., Ohio, I also visited for 
 five or six days and passed the time right cheer- 
 fully whilst there. Henry is an honest soul, 
 true and sincere, incapable of deception. Both 
 brothers wished me to remain with them and 
 join them in business. Their wishes, however, 
 I saw best to decline. I am certain that by 
 separation we can harbor more and better affec- 
 tion between us. Then the place and its environs 
 did not suit my taste for a life long Home. Yes- 
 terday, Tuesday, the eighth of June, I bade them 
 again farewell and took on the steamer Courier, 
 my departure for Cincinnati to go from there 
 further West in search of a home. Ho, for the 
 West! Kind God, may ye will that I meet my 
 anticipations and wishes. All I wish is a pleas- 
 ant, yes a beautiful and healthy nook to live 
 in, with a kind and loving wife to cheer me in 
 the battle of life and loving children to surround 
 and ease when once I journey the down hill 
 
 93 
 
of life towards ??? — the grave — dissolution — the 
 end of man? In short, I want Love in a Cottage. 
 I arrived at Cincinnati on the morning of 
 the tenth instant and took up lodgings at the 
 Spencer House, one of the best and of course, 
 dearest hotels in the city. This place surpassed 
 my expectations which I had formed in regard 
 to its industry, activity and wealth. Since my 
 last visit here in eighteen fifty -two, the town 
 has been greatly embellished by many beauti- 
 ful buildings, both private and public. Among 
 the latter those which deserve mention are the 
 Custom House, and Post Office, the Court House 
 and many beautiful churches, amongst which 
 the Catholic Cathedral is the handsomest. Be- 
 sides this, many new hotels — all of them fine 
 houses, as also many imposing business houses 
 have been erected of late years. The streets, 
 at least in the main part of the town which I 
 only ambulated, are laid out at right angles. 
 Among those which run from the river, form- 
 ing a right angle with the same, I noticed 
 Broadway, Main, Sycamore, Walnut. These 
 are intersected by the streets running parallel 
 with the river numbered One, Two, Three, Four, 
 etc. In short Cincinnati, with a population of 
 200,000 and still increasing, has all the appear- 
 ance of a thriving, wealthy, industrial and com- 
 mercial city, and fills the position of such in the 
 United States. It is especially famous for the 
 millions of hogs killed and packed here annually. 
 
 94 
 
From here, in the shape of shoulders, bacon 
 and ham they are sent all over the United States 
 and a large portion shipped via New Orleans 
 to England. Opposite to Cincinnati, is New Port, 
 Kentucky — also a thriving town. I stopped here 
 over night and left the eleventh at twelve 
 o'clock on the steamer Jacob Stratton, the first 
 and only low pressure boat I ever saw on the 
 Ohio, for Louisville, Kentucky. During last 
 night it set in again raining and continued so 
 all day — so that I had but little desire of being 
 outside the cabin and consequently observed 
 but little of the scenery along the river to 
 Louisville. There are a number of thriving 
 towns along the river — the principal of which 
 is Madison, Indiana. The Big Miami river 
 divides Ohio from Indiana. We lay over night 
 at Louisville. The next morning I and my 
 recently made acquaintance Mr. Charles N. 
 Scram, went over the greater part of the city. 
 Louisville belongs to Kentucky, situated on the 
 Ohio river at the head of the celebrated falls 
 of the Ohio. The latter are, except at high 
 water, an obstruction to navigation to over- 
 come which the two-mile long canal was built 
 at enormous cost and boats go through it 
 around the falls and strike again the Ohio 
 below. Louisville counts a population of sixty 
 thousand inhabitants and is of both commercial 
 and industrial importance. It has several fine 
 public buildings and the richness and beauty 
 
 Bancroft Library 95 
 
and chastity of its many private buildings 
 bespeak at once the wealth and taste of its 
 occupants. Its streets are wide and it rejoices 
 with Cincinnati in Avenues of trees now cov- 
 ered with the richest of foliage. 
 
 We delayed here till noon of the twelfth, 
 when we again took the steamer Moses McLellan 
 for St. Louis, Missouri. The rain still continued 
 to fall and the Ohio river, as all the rivers 
 throughout the country, continues to rise. They 
 promise to cause by their overflow an incalcu- 
 lable amount of damage to the crops in the bot- 
 toms through which they now roll their courses 
 with the wildest of turbulence. Last night, or 
 rather, this morning, the rain has abated and 
 thank God the sun once more radiates its 
 genial beams. May it continue and its blessed 
 warmth may yet reclaim many otherwise lost 
 acres of grain. 
 
 It is now Sunday, twelve o'clock and we have 
 arrived three hundred and three miles from 
 Louisville, having still three hundred and six- 
 teen miles to St. Louis. We shall probably get 
 there tomorrow night. Thanks to my cursed 
 mind, I have this last two days again been 
 oppressed with the blues, what it will ever end 
 in I don't know, possibly in suicide. Why was I 
 ever made or why was I not endowed with a 
 mind to make life desireful, pleasing and cheer- 
 ful instead of the one I possess, which is in- 
 capable to create a world for itself and too dull 
 
 96 
 
and selfish to enjoy that of others? However, 
 there is no help except — what can't be cured 
 must be endured. 
 
 Cairo, at the junction of the Mississippi and 
 Ohio rivers, we reached Sunday evening. The 
 flood has desolated much of this lower country, 
 destroying crops and homes and in fact all 
 kinds of property it encountered in its sweep- 
 ing course. Here it broke through the levee 
 which had been builded at a cost of twelve 
 millions of dollars and overran the whole town 
 except a portion on the highest part of the Ohio 
 levee. The damage is immense and general. 
 All being sufferers by it, it is chance now whether 
 it will ever be rebuilded. Its locality is such that 
 it must always be at the mercy of the high 
 floods which occur in these upper rivers period- 
 ically. They may fail some years, but will 
 only when they do come be so much more 
 terrible in their destruction. We doubled the 
 point and with a strong current against us, 
 ran up stream. All the bottom along the river 
 was covered with water, water, presenting one 
 bright broad sheet of water variegated with 
 forests of trees, in many places the roofs of 
 homes being apparent only and many being 
 entirely under water. 
 
 We reached St. Louis Tuesday morning, the 
 fifteenth instant. St. Louis is a stirring place, 
 made so by its favourable location on the Mis- 
 sissippi river. This river connects it with the 
 
 97 
 
State of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota 
 and Kansas, and with all the country on the 
 lower Mississippi — principally New Orleans. 
 This place will in a short time rival any inland 
 town in the Union and eventually become the 
 next largest city to New York. I stopped here 
 almost two days, left it on the seventeenth of 
 June for the Northern part of Missouri and 
 Kansas. The trip up the Missouri is very 
 tedious, the scenery being all the same all the 
 way. Bluffs of little beauty and bottom lands 
 covered with cottonwood. The river is very 
 crooked and very rapid in its course. On both 
 these accounts we made slow headway up nar- 
 row chutes, around innumerable bends, past 
 ever so many towns and villages. 
 
 Sunday evening we got to Kansas City, 
 Missouri. I laid over here the next day Mon- 
 day, in order to see the place and find out 
 something about its resources and prospects. 
 While here I visited Wyandot on the North 
 side of Kansas River, the same side as Kansas 
 City on the Missouri. This is a very new free 
 state settlement and although but of recent 
 origin has many fine houses, stores and hotels. 
 Possessing a very good site for a city with a 
 good landing, it will be in time, when the 
 resources of Kansas are developed, a thriving 
 place. Kansas City is built on a bluff rising 
 from the river bank and expensive grading was 
 necessary to secure an area for houses. From 
 
 98 
 
here streets are made by excavating through 
 the bluffs to the best part of the city which lies 
 back of the bluffs. This addition is quite new 
 but springing up now very fast and will be- 
 come in time a large city. 
 
 I left Kansas City on Monday afternoon for 
 Leavenworth and St. Joseph and reached the 
 latter place on the twenty-fourth instant. I 
 had been here in eighteen fifty-two, on my way 
 to California. I remembered well enough its 
 site but the town has changed very much since 
 that time, having at least four times increased 
 in its size and population. It is laid out in 
 rectangular streets having on Second street 
 an open place for the market house. There are 
 already many fine buildings here and many 
 more going up. Property has greatly enhanced 
 in value on account of its unrivalled location. 
 I stayed here several days making enquiry 
 and gaining information as to the resources 
 of the place and its adaptability to my business. 
 The prospects held out to me were fair enough 
 and I partly decided if I could not find a place 
 suiting still better to return here and establish 
 myself in business. 
 
 I left this town for Leavenworth, seventy 
 miles South of St. Joseph on the Missouri River. 
 This is in Kansas and although only three 
 years old has already attained a size and enjoys 
 a large and growing commerce which rivals many 
 a town of ten times its age. It is at present the 
 
 99 
 
key port to Kansas Territory. Most of the 
 business for the Territory is transacted here. 
 Its location on the Missouri River secures it 
 the connection with St. Louis and through it by 
 the Grand Central Web of Railroads with all 
 parts of the United States. The site for the 
 town is good and back some distance from the 
 river and right above the business part of the 
 town, up the River, beautiful. 
 
 This town holds out the same inducements 
 to me to start business here as St. Joseph. It 
 does now and I think always will lead St. 
 Joseph in commercial importance and the fact 
 of being in a free State will probably turn the 
 scale in its favor in my decision between the 
 two places. Leavenworth City at present is 
 yet only three years old and grown as sudden 
 as it has, everyone putting up buildings only 
 studying to make the least outlay practicable 
 for present purposes, the sanitary arrangements 
 have of consequence been neglected and this 
 I am satisfied in my mind will be the cause of 
 severe sickness during this and the still coming 
 scorching heat of Summer. This fact will prob- 
 ably keep me off till Fall, when colder winds 
 will purify the air from putrid exhalations. 
 
 I started on a short trip inland, to see some- 
 what more of the Territory than its outskirts, 
 on the last day of June. This is certainly a 
 lovely country to survey, bound to attract the 
 admiration of any one in whose heart the least 
 
 100 
 
drop of human kindness is not forever dried 
 up. A living sea is the truest picture I can give 
 of its appearance, the whole is a vast expanse 
 of land, undulating, shifting, like the eternal 
 throwings of the Ocean. Here and there streams 
 meandering along through some of its shallow 
 curves, fringed with trees, add to the sublimity 
 of the scene. But for me to portray this part 
 of nature's face is a useless task. I can feel the 
 grandeurs of it easier than to describe them. 
 
 After passing through the reservation of the 
 Delaware, we crossed the Kansas River and 
 arrived at Lawrence, the first town this side of 
 Leavenworth. I arrived just in time to hear 
 of the acquittal of Jim Lame for the murder of 
 Jennings. After a stay of an hour during which 
 I promenaded once or twice through the only 
 street which makes the present town, I took 
 the stage for Topeka, twenty-five miles dis- 
 tance. I had the pleasure of enjoying a right 
 good thorough jolting, making the trip one of 
 punishment instead of pleasure. After a long 
 and tedious ride of nine hours, passing through 
 Tecompton and Tecomseh, we arrived at two 
 o'clock in the morning of the first of July in 
 Topeka. I came here principally to buy hides, 
 but could not find any here. This, like all the 
 places here is quiet and at present very dull, 
 being in fact at the lowest stage of commercial 
 stagnation. I shall take the stage tomorrow at 
 two A.M. for Leavenworth City. 
 
 101