The Rush
Page 29
34 “Nine men occupied a space”: McCollum, California, p. 87. LC.
35 One singularly unlucky traveler: Dolly Bates told her story in Bates, Incidents on Land and Water. LC.
36 “You must not believe half”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 7.
37 “Sunday night, lonesome as death”: ibid., p. 1.
38 “It is a long route”: ibid., p. 7.
39 “a splendid steamship”: ibid., p. 11.
40 “We found benaners”: Lewis, Sea Routes, p. ix.
41 “Duff, plum duff”: DeCosta, quoted in Lorenz, “Scurvy,” p. 482.
42 “Mine were generally of the hardened species”: Mulford, Life, p. 56.
43 “It might be mule”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 360.
44 “oppressive almost beyond endurance”: Perkins, Three Years, p. 81.
45 “The old year ended in scarcity”: Rapport, 1848, p. 37.
46 “The gold excitement here”: Wright, “Cosmopolitan California,” pt. II, p. 66.
47 A new song: London Sunday Times, Jan 6, 1849, reprinted in Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 133.
48 “Nothing in Norway’s condition”: Wright, “Cosmopolitan California,” pt. II, p. 67.
49 “it abounds with wine and money”: Jackson, Gold Rush, p. 36.
50 “Money is in great plenty”: Whipple, The Challenge, p. 63.
51 Steerage was so overcrowded: Corbett, Poker Bride, p. 8.
52 In a single two-day span: Wright, “Cosmopolitan California,” pt. I, p. 330.
Chapter Six: An Army on the March
1 “The force of the wind”: Delano, Journey, p. 27.
2 “Distance gained—nothing”: ibid., p. 31.
3 “for without firing a shot”: ibid., p. 38.
4 As lost as “the children of Israel”: ibid.
5 “being unaaccustomed to labor”: ibid., p. 32.
6 “a company of Christians”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 15.
7 “as if a mighty army”: Delano, Journey, p. 46.
8 “Love is hotter here”: Unruh, Plains Across, p. 397.
9 “Many a Green ’un trembled”: Wyman, ed., Letters, p. 48.
10 “the most beautiful prairie”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 20.
11 “To see and feel it in all its beauty”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 15.
12 “All the storms which I ever before”: Reid, Overland, quoting Niles Searls, a fellow passenger.
13 “The thunder and lightning were continuous”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 26.
14 “It is necessary to rouse”: ibid., p. 23.
15 “We left a dead man”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 15.
16 “He called himself T. R. Waring”: ibid., p. 23.
17 “Every steamer was impregnated” with the disease: Thissell, Plains, p. 8.
18 “the scum of the city”: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, p. 591, quoting John Pintard.
19 Vibrio cholerae “converts the human body”: Johnson, Ghost Map, p. 38.
20 With the rise of giant, filthy, slum-infested cities: ibid., p. 41.
21 “the gold rush was to cholera”: Groh, Gold Fever, p. 28.
22 Fn “The past is a foreign country”: Gregory Cochran’s remark is from an Edge.com forum on explanations in science. See http://tinyurl.com/86b8uzj.
23 “Dear me! What insipid water!”: Steele, Summer Journey, p. 210.
24 a diet of bacon covered in cayenne pepper: Foreman, ed., Marcy, p. 85.
25 “Have passed a great many graves”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 28.
26 “Passed a number of graves”: ibid., p. 24.
27 “The meat is better than venison”: ibid., p. 25.
28 “One of the oddest little creatures”: Thissell, Plains, p. 53.
29 “In a moment all was excitement”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 30.
30 A young carpenter named Reuben Shaw: Shaw, Plains, pp. 50–52.
31 “The casualties of buffalo hunting”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 24.
32 “a slaughter yard, dotted all over with skeletons”: Unruh, Plains Across, p. 386.
33 “We frequently see half-eaten corpses”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 34.
34 the gold-seekers and those who followed: This is a paraphrase of a passage on p. 75 of Keith Meldahl’s Hard Road West.
35 “The locusts of Egypt”: Johnston, Experiences, p. 79.
36 “We found the bodies of nine Sioux”: Stansbury, Exploration, pp. 43–46.
37 “the worst river to ford”: Morton and Watkins, Nebraska, p. 94.
38 “fearful to look at”: Frink, Journal, p. 67.
39 “The frantic driver shouted”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 13.
40 Joseph Bruff saw a wagon: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 25.
41 “No loved one near”: Thissell, Plains, p. 28.
42 “Another of our company died”: Fairchild, Letters, p. 26.
43 “Passed a camp of 5 wagons”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 39.
44 “Custom made us regard”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 14.
Chapter Seven: Let Us Glory in Our Magnificence
1 “The worst hills this side of the Missouri”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 33.
2 “Here you saw the minarets of a castle”: Delano, Journey, p. 73.
3 “If a man does not feel like an insect then”: Perkins, Diary, p. 46.
4 “The evening was wet”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 72.
5 “If a man has a mean streak”: ibid.
6 “this long, weary, and vexacious journey”: Delano, Correspondence, p. 16.
7 “no situation so trying”: Reid, Overland, p. 97. Another emigrant described the dissension on a cross-country journey, in 1858, where “everything went lovely for a while, but the men soon became cross and ill-natured. The day the butter gave out, two men quarreled over the last morsel, drew their guns, and bloodshed was prevented only by the prompt interference of [two other men].” See George Thissell, Crossing the Plains in ’49, p. 28.
8 Fn “Grown men are apt to become children”: Reid, Overland, p. 97.
9 “If I ordered a halt at 5 o’clock: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 426.
10 “At home I saw my neighbors”: Lewis, Sea Routes, p. 15.
11 “One of the first things I plan”: ibid., p. ix.
12 “Poor fellow,” wrote Ingalls: Ingalls, Journal, p. 28.
13 To his horror, Delano found: Delano, Journey, p. 63.
14 “nothing but the huts of savages”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. 54.
15 “Oh, what a treat”: Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 76.
16 “some of the hills look like a mine”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 46.
17 “thick as snowflakes”: Webster, Gold-seekers, p. 49.
18 “The mosquitoes swarm by the millions”: Thissell, Crossing the Plains, p. 25.
19 “They are very great pests”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 47.
20 “Bear Creek… was a famous breeder of chills”: Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, ch. 55.
21 “Oh, from down on the Wabash”: Delano, Journey, p. 262.
22 “Chills and fevers were believed part”: Billington, “Words.”
23 “my old companions, chill and fever”: Delano, Journey, p. 256.
24 “one man in California who ever had a chill”: Billington, “Words.”
25 “For this blessed mission”: Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. xi.
26 “so ferocious and bloodthirsty”: Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 67.
27 Abraham Lincoln would frame: This was Lincoln’s “Second Lecture on Inventions and Discoveries,” delivered on Feb. 11, 1859. See http://tinyurl.com/cwurcaz.
28 “self-made” was not yet a synonym: The argument in this paragraph and the next derives from Cawelti, Apostles of the Self-Made Man, pp. 41–46.
29 “The farm boy who embarked”: Billington, “Words.”
30 “America’s national adolescence”: David Kennedy, in his introduction to Howe, What Hath God Wrought, p. xiii.
; 31 “In the States,” one visiting Scotsman observed: Borthwick, Three Years in California, p. 106.
32 “Let us glory in the magnificence”: Rydell, “Cape Horn Route,” p. 159.
33 “any quantity of speeches”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 48.
34 “the singular and romantic bluffs”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 31.
35 Imploring him to “hurry up”: ibid., p. 27.
36 The death was “sudden and astounding”: ibid.
37 “It is the most beautiful spot”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 12
38 “The air was filled with the music”: ibid., p. 15.
39 “a bed of slime”: Bancroft, California Inter Pocula, p. 159.
40 “It is composed of about fifty”: Marryat, Mountains and Molehills, ch. 1.
41 “A returning Californian had just reached”: Taylor, Eldorado, p. 12.
42 The boatmen were “naked or [wearing] nothing”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 14.
43 “not inconveniently burdened with clothing”: Grant, Memoirs, p. 71.
44 “Would to God I could describe”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 28.
45 “They would come and look at me”: ibid., p. 15.
46 “the monkies were howling”: Matt, Homesickness, p. 67.
47 “Among all the miserable places”: Weber, ed., Schliemann, p. 81. Online at http://tinyurl.com/kv394mb.
48 “travellers murdered on the road”: ibid., p. 38.
49 “the most delightful in the world”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 14.
50 “A mule took the liberty”: ibid., p. 30.
51 “just room for the beast”: ibid., p. 16.
52 Fn “they equally shoot or stab them”: Weber, ed., Schliemann, p. 38.
53 “there are a great number of churches”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 31.
54 “Cats, dogs, and rats trooped through”: ibid., p. 19.
55 “hundreds of us were attacked”: ibid., p. 81.
56 “we have not suffered”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 20.
57 “The town was overrun”: ibid., p. 31.
58 “looked less like civilization”: ibid., p. 21.
59 “Every man that goes to the mines”: ibid., p. 32.
60 “In about one year, you will see”: ibid., p. 25.
Chapter Eight: A Rope of Sand
1 “our incessant journeying”: Delano, Journey, p. 75.
2 “Day after day, week after week”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 13.
3 Fn “A woman is nobody”: Robert James Maddox, American History: Pre-Colonial through Reconstruction (New York: McGraw Hill, 2000), p. 128.
4 “Home is the palace”: Reverend Joshua N. Danforth, Gleanings and Groupings from a Pastor’s Portfolio (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1852), p. 1, online at http://tinyurl.com/nyfljsd.
5 “The Victorian structure of domestic power”: West, “Family Life,” p. 35.
6 “My health at present is rather feeble”: Drury, ed., Diaries of Mary Walker, p. 9. The footnote citing Mary Walker’s diary entry is from p. 227.
7 She set their wagon on fire: West, “Family Life,” p. 36.
8 “for the first time in our lives”: Delano, Journey, p. 64. Future laundry ventures only confirmed Delano in his dislike. “Of all miserable work,” he wrote on July 17, “washing is the meanest; and no man who has crossed the plains will ever find fault with his wife for scolding on a washing day.” See Journey, p. 141.
9 a “cruel and fiendish murder”: Delano, Journey, p. 124.
10 “The Devil seems to take full possession”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 79.
11 “the wretch was swung into eternity”: Thompson, Reminiscences, p. 6.
12 “a rope of sand”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. 40.
13 “I immediately convened the company”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 34.
14 “great dissension in the company”: ibid., p. 51.
15 “No one would ever suspect”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 28.
16 “ascent of the Capitol hill”: Unruh, Plains Across, p. 44.
17 “perfectly stupid and childish”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 59.
18 “In a musing mood”: Delano, Journey, p. 116.
19 “crowded like Pearl Street or Broadway”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. 73.
20 “The whole country is one vast sand bed”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 60.
21 “Our faces, hair, and clothes”: Delano, Journey, p. 122.
22 “All is dry, dry, dry”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 60.
23 “You seldom see a bird”: Banks, Buckeye Rovers, p. 63.
24 “Green River presents the most romantic”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 29.
25 “like a curved silver thread”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 71. Bruff’s drawing of the descent is on p. 537.
26 “the most romantic and beautiful valley”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 67.
27 “For more than two months”: Delano, Journey, p. 130.
28 “When we commenced the journey”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 33.
29 “You may think you have seen mountains”: Holliday, Rush for Riches, p. 108.
30 “Men & oxen suffering much”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 71.
31 “innumerable large black mice”: ibid., p. 77.
32 a small piece of apple pie: ibid., p. 81.
33 “only needed lemon syrup”: ibid., p. 91.
34 “Bull would come up”: ibid., p. 612.
35 “Weary, weary, weary”: Delano, Journey, p. 141.
36 “We began to see many traveling on foot”: ibid., p. 145.
37 “Here we are yet”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. 24.
38 worthy of Molly Bloom: ibid.
39 “in flocks so large they look like a cloud”: ibid., p. 22.
40 “We killed two scorpions”: ibid.
41 “One of the party shot him”: ibid., p. 23.
42 “scarce light enough to see the rats and spiders”: ibid., p. 140.
43 “I am now writing the last letter”: ibid., p. 33.
Chapter Nine: Gone!
1 “nothing but horse broth”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 40.
2 “The reader should not imagine”: Shaw, Across the Plains, p. 135.
3 a temperature of 140 degrees: Reid, Overland, p. 128.
4 “In the creek we found”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. 125.
5 “For about ten days the only water”: Cole, Early Days, p. 101.
6 “Our dreams are of water”: Barry, ed., “John Hawkins Clark,” pp. 282–83.
7 “One of the men had got crazy”: Stewart, California Trail, p. 265
8 “the parched and dry alkaline crust”: Delano, Journey, p. 169.
9 “Suppose dry ashes and fine sand were mixed”: Reid, Overland, p. 115.
10 “It is a dreary barren spot”: Dundass, Journal, p. 49.
11 “like ducks on a pond”: Reid, Overland, p. 120.
12 “On leaving home it looked like a hardship”: Delano, Journey, p. 171.
13 “The appearance of emigrants has sadly changed”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 40.
14 “We have absolutely used up”: Reid, Overland, p. 128.
15 “a great rent in the earth”: Shaw, Across the Plains, p. 137.
16 “Sand!!! Hot!!!”: Stewart, California Trail, p. 266.
17 “It was a forced march”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 27.
18 “a scene more horrid”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 44.
19 “While we were yet five miles”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 28.
20 “Men were seen to rush up”: Owen Coy, The Great Trek, p. 203.
21 “We buried our faces”: Fey et al., Emigrant Shadows, p. 124.
22 “as steep as the roof of a house”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 48.
23 “Just ahead,” wrote one dismayed traveler: Coy, Great Trek, p. 203.
24 “It made one’s flesh creep”: Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 259.
25 “creep upward upon their knees”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. 161.
26
“I do not think it possible”: ibid., p. 165.
27 “By the side of such a grove”: ibid., p. 173.
28 Eleazer Ingalls waxed philosophical: Ingalls, Journal, p. 48.
29 “Already we began to forget”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 28.
Chapter Ten: Marooned
1 “I had determined to take a northern route”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 140.
2 he wrote a proud note: ibid., p. 144.
3 the goldfields were only 110 miles ahead: Unruh, Plains Across, p. 353.
4 “a dead ox, swelled up”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 148.
5 “it seemed to be the River of Death”: Thornton, Oregon and California, p. 179.
6 “monstrous, unmeaning, vacant, lustrous”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 104.
7 Some of the fallen animals: Cole, Overland Travel, p. 108.
8 The stink hung so heavy: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 117.
9 “By actual measurement”: ibid., p. 126.
10 “The selfishness of my men”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 157.
11 “Held a meeting to inflict penalties”: ibid., p. 164.
12 The ascent was “pretty steep”: ibid., p. 174.
13 “What a scene from here”: ibid., p. 185.
14 “To admire is a long way behind me”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 147.
15 “The company very anxious”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 194.
16 he had “brought them to this point”: ibid., p. 207.
17 “We pitched our tent”: ibid., p. 209.
18 “Thin with hunger”: ibid., p. 212.
19 A group of emigrants had purposely set fire: ibid., p. 214.
20 “You came for me!”: ibid., p. 221.
21 “An aged, grey headed man”: ibid., p. 224.
22 “Alas for the sick & helpless”: ibid., p. 228.
23 “many a poor, wet, tired, and ragged hombre”: ibid., p. 234.
24 “Unsuccessful hunt today”: ibid., p. 231.
25 “Quite ill tonight”: ibid., p. 239.
26 It was a thundering shame: ibid., pp. 242, 248.
27 “Unless succor is sent me”: ibid., p. 250.
28 “strong gales and snow”: ibid., p. 255.
29 “I & the child are doomed, perhaps”: ibid., p. 262.
30 “All wet, and confusion”: ibid., p. 265.