Western Expansion Narrative #1:
Letter from William Swain , January 6, 1850
Dear George,
…. I can only give you a word in this letter as there is so much to say about California and its mines of gold....
We arrived at Lawson's Ranch on the 8th day of November, tired and worn down with toil and exposure but hardy, healthy, and in good spirits, buoyant with hope.
The swollen river prevented the miners from operating near its bed where gold is found most abundantly... During the fall, miners could average their ounce clear in working with rockers on the bars and edges of the streams, and those who were lucky enough to make dams across the streams before the rains often made large sums in a few days and frequently in a few hours.
….In late November we bought provisions at Long's Trading Post and took packs of fifty pounds each. We traveled over the mountains for twenty--five miles through rain, mud and clouds and arrived on the South Fork on the third day.
After prospecting two days, we located a spot favorable for damming and draining the river. We made our claim and then built a house as soon as possible to shelter our heads from the soaking rains. So here we are, snug as schoolmarms, working at our race and dam….. Over the fireplace are our rifles, which are ever ready, cocked and primed, and frequently yield us good venison. In the other corner may be seen our cupboard with its contents, which consist of a few wooden and tin dishes, bottles, knives and forks and spoons, tin frying pan, boiler, and coffee pot. Around the sides of the cabin at various points are the few articles of clothing belonging to the different members of the company. Under the bed are five cakes of tallow, under the bunk are three or four large bags of flour. Along the point of the roof is a line of dried beef.
We found the most extraordinary state of morals in the mines. Everything in this country is left where the owner wished to leave it, in any place no matter where, as such a thing as stealing is not known. Miners' rights are well protected. Disputes seldom arise and are settled by referees, as they would be at home.
….There was some talk between us of your coming to this country. For God's sake think not of it. Stay at home…. thousands have laid and will lay their bones along the routes to and in this country[and] if my health is spared, I can get enough for both of us.
You may think from the tenor of this letter that I am sick of my job, but not so. I have not seen the hour yet when I regretted starting for California, nor have any one of our little party ever regretted that we undertook the enterprise. I have seen hard times, face the dangers of disease and exposure and perils of all kinds, but I count them as nothing if they enable me to place myself and family in comfortable circumstances.
I have felt great anxiety about my wife and child, as I left them no means to live upon for so long a time, expecting to send home means before this; and also, their necessities might embarass you. I hope that you will see that they are provided for, and if I can remunerate you for any trouble you may have, I shall feel willing to do so and ever feel grateful for your kindness. Give my love to Mother, if she is yet living, and say to her that I often, very often, think of her.
Give my love to Sabrina and kiss little Cub for me.
Goodbye George,
William
P.S. I have wafered in some samples of gold found on the main branch of the Feather River. The coarse is a fine specimen found on this fork, but gold found here is often as coarse as a hickory nut.
P.S. An onion in the mines is worth a dollar, and boots $40 per pair. I have paid $8 for a jar of pickles.
P.S. All well, and I have sent this to San Francisco by a Mr. Tolles by paying 50 cents.
Western Expansion Narrative #2:
Luzena Stanley Wilson Reminiscences – Gold Rush in 1849
The gold excitement spread like wildfire, even out to our log cabin in the prairie, and as we had almost nothing to lose, and we might gain a fortune, we early caught the fever. My husband grew enthusiastic and wanted to start immediately, but I would not be left behind. I thought where he could go I could, and where I went I could take my two little toddling babies. Mother-like, my first thought was of my children. I little realized then the task I had undertaken. If I had, I think I should still be in my log cabin in Missouri. But when we talked it all over, it sounded like such a small task to go out to California, and once there fortune, of course, would come to us.
Our first camp fire was lighted in Indian Territory, which spread on one unbroken, unnamed waste from the Missouri River to the border line of California. Here commenced my terrors. Around us in every direction were groupss of Indians sitting, standing, and on horseback, as many as two hundred in the camp. I had read and heard whole volumes of their bloody deeds, the massacre of harmless white men, torturing helpless women, carrying away captive innocent babes. I felt my children the most precious in the wide world, and I lived in an agony of dread that first night. The Indians were friendly, of course, and swapped ponies for whiskey and tobacco with the gathering bands of emigrants….the camp of the "Independence Co”…. sent back word they "didn't want to be troubled with women and children; they were going to California". My anger at their insulting answer roused my courage, and my last fear of Indians died a sudden death. "I am only a woman," I said, "but I am going to California, too, and without the help of the Independence Co”.
The Platte was the first great water-course we crossed. It is a peculiar, wide, shallow stream, with a quicksand bed.. The water poured into the wagon in spite of our precautions and floated off some of our few movables; but we landed safely on the other side, and turned to see the team behind us stop in mid-stream. The frantic driver shouted, whipped, belabored the stubborn animals in vain, and the treacherous sand gave way under their feet. They sank slowly, gradually, but surely. They went out of sight inch by inch, and the water rose over the moaning beasts. Without a struggle they disappeared beneath the surface. In a little while the broad South Platte swept on its way, sunny, sparkling, placid, without a ripple to mark where a lonely man parted with all his fortune.
In strange contrast was the North Platte which we next crossed, a boiling, seething, turbulent stream, which foamed and whirled as if enraged at the imprisoning banks. And so, all the way, it was a road strewn with perils, over a strange, wild country. Sometimes over wide prairies, grass-grown, and deserted save by the startled herds of buffalo and elk; sometimes through deep, wild canons, where the mosses were like a carpet beneath our feet, and the overhanging trees shut out the sunshine for days together; sometimes over high mountains, where at every turn a new road had to be cleared, we always carried with us tired bodies and often discoiuraged hearts. We frequently met men who had given up the struggle, who had lost their teams, abandoned their wagons, and, with their blankets on their back, were tramping home. There was not time for anything but the ceaseless march for gold.
The night that we camped in the desert my husband came to me with the story of the "Independence Company". They, like hundreds of others had given out on the desert; their mules gone, many of their number dead, the party broken up, some gone back to Missouri, two of the leaders were here, not distant forty yards, dying of thirst and hunger. Who could leave a human creature to perish in this desolation? I took food and water and found them bootless, hatless, ragged and tattered, moaning in the starlight for death to relieve them from torture. They called me an angel; they showered blessings on me; and when they recollected that they had refused me their protection that day on the Missouri, they dropped on their knees there in the sand and begged my forgiveness.
Near Sacramento, I felt embarrassed, drew down my ragged sun-bonnet over my sunburned face, and shrank from observation. My skirts were worn off in rags above my ankles; my sleeves hung in tatters above my elbows; my hands brown and hard, were gloveless; around my neck was tied a cotton square, torn from a discarded dress; the soles of my leather shoes had long ago parted company with the uppers; and my husband and children and all the camp, were in rags.
I had cooked my supper on the camp fire, as usual, when a hungry miner, attracted by the unussual sight of a woman, said to me, "I'll give you five dollars, ma'am, for them biscuit." It sounded like a fortune to me, and I looked at him to see if he meant it. And as I hesitated at such, to me, a very remarkable proposition, he repeated his offer to purchase, and said he would give ten dollars for bread made by a woman, and laid the shining gold piece in my hand. I made some more biscuit for my family, told my husband of my good fortune, and put the precious coin away as a nest-egg for the wealth we were to gain.
Western Expansion Narrative #3:
Crossing the Great Plains by Ox-Wagons by Harriet Palmer
My father, John Tucker Scott, with much of the pioneer spirit in his blood, became so interested that he decided to "Go West"....The spring of 1852 ushered in so many preparations, great work of all kinds. I remember relations coming to help sew, of tearful partings, little gifts of remembrances exchanged, the sale of the farm, the buying and breaking in of unruly oxen, the loud voices of the men, and the general confusion.
The first of April came -- 1852. The long line of covered wagons, so clean and white, but oh so battered, torn and dirty afterward: The loud callings and hilarity: many came to see us off. We took a last look at our dear homestead as it faded from our view. We crossed the Illinois River on a ferry. We looked back and saw our old watch dog (his name was Watch) howling on the distant shore. Father had driven him back, saying, "Go back to Graadfather, Watch!" But he never ate afterwards, and soon died.
When we crossed into Nebraska, it seemed such a wide stretch of plain. We got our first sight of Indians -- a file of Indians were passing along, single file. They were the Pottowattamies, dressed in buckskins, beads, and leading their ponies. An open country was now before us. The melting snows had made the streams high, the roads nearly impassable. The Platte river, swift and swollen, didn't seem to have any banks. We had heard of the danger of quicksands. My father had, with the help of his drivers, raised the beds of his wagons, so as not to dip water ... When everything was in readiness all of us were tucked inside of the wagons. My father put me, last of all, inside the back end of the last wagon, told me to keep still and not be afraid. The loud voices of the drivers as they yelled and whipped up the oxen, the jogging of the wagons through the surging waters and over the quicksands, the memory is with me yet. When they got over the river, all were accounted for, but they couldn't find me. Finally I was pulled out from under the bows, nearly smothered. There were nine of us children, ranging from four years to my eldest sister about 19.
My mother kept the two youngest with her always in "Mother's wagon". Her health was not very good, and she had dreads and fears, but hoped she would live to get to Oregon. Fate willed it otherwise, and being frail and weary with the long journey, she fell a victim to the cholera, so prevalent that year on the plains, leaving her sorrowing family to grieve for her. When we reached Wyoming, there in the Black Hills, this side of Ft.Laramie, the passing of that dear, beloved mother was a crushing blow to all our hopes. We had to journey on, and leave her in a lonely grave -- a feather bed as a coffin, and the grave protected from the wolves by stones heaped upon it. The rolling hills were ablaze with beautiful wild roses -- it was the 20th of June, and we heaped and covered mother's grave with the roses so the cruel stones were hid from view. Her grave is lost. No one was ever able to find it again.
... About 2 miles above the great American Falls we were able to get the cattle down to drink. It so happened that after the yokes of the oxen were removed and the oxen driven into the water, an old headstrong bull plunged into the river and swam across, the rest of the cattle following, except two cows that our man were able to keep back. Our company was in great peril.... My father, generally equal to any emergency, decided that any one or more of the men who were good swimmers, should go above our camp, swim over and drive the cattle back. This was attempted by two young men, one of whom swum over first, on one of our mares; the other was drowned, and as we with agonized eyes watched the stream we saw the white face of our old mare "Sukey" bobbing up and down in the boiling waters. She was such a loved old mare that we could not bare to leave her at home in Illinois. A third man tried and got safely over. We could see his naked form over the river among the hot burning rocks. It was impossible for him alone to drive the cattle back. My father made a mighty effort to get across. Then he ordered the calking of one of the wagon beds to make a boat, and in this, three more paddled over and took some clothing to cover the poor sunburnt men on the rocks -- he was over there in that awful predicament for three days; his skin all peeled off, and he nearly lost his mind from his awful experience. They got the cattle safely over the river again, but the two cows that stayed behind ate of something poisonous and died during the night.
On and on we journeyed -- averaging 15 miles a day over cactus, sagebrush, hot sand. Everybody's shoes gave out and we bartered with Indians for moccasins, but that didn't help much about the prickly pears. One by one the oxen fell by the way. We came to BurntRiver -- a most desolate country. Here our baby brother Willie fell sick. It was in the heat of August. The train was halted, that the darling child of 4 years could be better cared for, but he became unconscious and passed away. The soil here was thin and full of rocks. My poor father, broken-hearted, had the men cut a cavity out of the solid rock jutting out of Burnt River Mountain, and here the little form was sealed beside where the only living thing was --- a little juniper tree. My brother Harvey found it, twenty years later, and he peeled some of the bark off of the juniper tree and brought it back to my father. My father had carved Willie's name on the tree.
August passed. We were nearing the Cascade Mountains. The oxen were worn out, and the wagons were in poor condition to cross' the mountains. Some wagons had to be left; some of the oxen were poisoned eating mountain laurel. Our provisions were exhausted by this time, and for three days we had only salal berries and some soup made by thickening water, from flour shaken from a remaining flour sack, My uncle Levi Caffee, who was a great joker, looked at the poor mess and said to his wife, "Why Ellen, ain't there a little bread or something." "Oh no," she said, "we are all starving together." It so happened a man overtook us on horseback, and father bought some of the flour he had in a sack behind his saddle. He paid $1.00 a pound. It proved to be bitter with mildew and unfit to eat. My sister, having charge of the two smaller children, and my aunt, whose youngest was seven, saved and hid in their pockets same biscuits they from time to time, doled out to the three littlest children.
We came to the old Barlow Road, and a station called Barlow's Gate, in the Cascade Mountains, where we found provisions, and actually some fruit -- apples and peaches and plenty of bread. It was not long now till we reached the valley settlements and found relatives who had came the year before….Before we reached OregonCity, my father was fortunate enough to buy two pounds of butter. The hungry crowd was so great that before we smaller ones had our turn at the improvised table, the butter had all been eaten up.