The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  “According to the records of the trial, which I have before me in giving this information to Your Holiness, the assassins did not have the time to rob him, as he lost only his hat, cane and a ring of slight worth. It seems, then, and appears from the records, that the assassins were paid by the quack Dwyer to put him to death so as to get possession of some funds of the deceased, for from the statement of Maria Sostenes Banuelos, who attended him, it appears that he always wore a sort of vest which she herself made for him, holding a few ounces of gold, and that in addition to this quantity, the deceased had in a leather belt five small money bags which would hold about $20 or more each. This money disappeared, though the police were active in trying to clear up the crime. The records bring to light facts that lead one to regard Dwyer as the instigator of the crime, with Petronilo Raigosa and Antonio Gonzalez as the executors of the homicide.

  “The trial is still undecided. The record consists of 117 large sheets, yet in spite of the fact that in it the defendants are declared under arrest, they are nevertheless at liberty, and Mr. Dwyer free on bail, which he broke and lives undisturbed at the Chachihuitee mine, where he has gone so far in his disservice and wickedness as to present a claim to Washington against Mexico for damages and injuries for the time he was held in this city on account of his horrible crime. May God our Lord guard Your Holiness for many years.

  (signed) PABLO SANCHEZ CASTELLANOS”

  I believe the foregoing will satisfy your wishes, at least so far as I am able to do so.

  Placing myself at your service, I am

  Faithfully yours, J. M. DEL REFUGIO

  Bishop of Zacatecas

  The rest of my father’s Journals were sent along later. The last word of the last entry he made, obviously in haste, was, “Tomorrow,” with three dots: “… ”

  The Reverend Ebersohl arrived a week after the letter. Seeing his duty to be removed for a while from San Francisco, devil or no devil, he had worked his way upriver by manual toil, and walked or ridden wagon trains as far as the ranch. It would be hard to say just how glad we were to see him. Sitting on the Kissels’ porch after supper—Coulter and Jennie and Uncle Ned and Todd and the Kissels—Reverend Ebersohl forgot he was a preacher for a while. He even drank a glass of wine; I couldn’t have been more staggered if he’d hung up a notice praising the devil. Then he sat talking about my father until midnight. I’d never heard him make so much sense; he said the old things, but he said them well.

  “Doctor placed his trust in the future. That way, it might be said that he had more faith than all of us put together. He believed in the green pastures, the beacon on the hill. And I think he died feeling he had found it. Probably he never realized that, to hold it, to savor fully what was nothing but a poor ghost, he must release it soon, keep moving, hurry on, push forward on a search that, for him, could never end. You mustn’t grieve, son. He’s safe in his illusory world, rid of his private demons. And we’ve all been enriched by his wonderful faults and foolishness.”

  I wrote a letter to my mother, and in due time an answer came back. The house was sold and my father’s debts paid; there was enough left over for her and Hannah and Mary to come to California, by way of Panama, then by steamer to San Francisco. During the winter, Aunt Kitty had died, having failed to cure a case of pneumonia with a broth made of possum liver and sanctified spunk water (and refusing to co-operate with a doctor who was summoned). Clara and Willie had both been freed, given a present of money, and jobs found them in the neighborhood.

  My mother was putting Louisville behind her for good. I knew how she hated to leave, but I was glad she was coming. At no place in her letter did she mention my father in any way. I think that for her in these years, left alone as she was, his letters drying up for long periods, he had almost ceased to exist. She had shut him out with such firmness that he no longer had any power to hurt her.

  Months would pass before they could arrive. Meanwhile the ranches grew, our crops were planted, we prospered. But the times were not peaceful entirely. People had begun to sense the value of these lands, and ruffians had twice tried to take possession. On one terrible day, Coulter, tired of trying to pit reason against force (very much against his nature to start off with) buckled on his gun, looking like the black-jowled roughneck of the trail, and killed three men in a glade not far from his house, letting each draw first, in accordance with his reputation. After that, when word got out clear up and down the coast exactly who he was, the side-kick of Bridger and Kit Carson, the man they couldn’t run out of Texas, the land-hawks let us alone. One unhappy feature of the incident was that it caused bad blood for a few days between him and Uncle Ned, who claimed that, with odds of three to one, Coulter had a moral obligation to let him in on the entertainment. Coulter promised to reform, and it passed off.

  Autumn has come, and I am on my way to San Francisco. I have a new suit. I am going on seventeen years old. I am scarcely aware of the river, or the boats, or, finally, the city where I lived in hardship for so long. There is a little stab of pain when I see the spot where the sailors’ tent stood, and think of my father’s plans in those days. But a ship is coming in toward the wharf; the lines are out; men are running up and down; a skiff picks out a lead line that falls short in the water; and the steam winches make a great noise.

  And on deck, strange in her English clothes and smart manner, is my sister who can be a sister no longer. For a second, she folds her arms across her breasts in the Indian sign I had not understood that day in the grove when she left; then she gives a gay smile and waves.

  The gangplank is down, and I am up in a rush, my heart thumping in my chest.

  “You look—different. Is it really you?”

  “Oh, Jaimie, it is me!”

  She places her hand in mine, and we walk away into that fine bright future that my father always knew existed, our present, in which I shall now believe forever.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Sterling Memorial Library, at Yale University, and in particular to the curator of the Library’s collection of Western Americana., Dr. Archibald Hanna, whose patient guidance and help made possible the research here involved.

  Thanks also are extended to the Public Library of Louisville, Kentucky, and to the Medical College of Edinburgh University.

  It should be noted that the journals of Dr. Joseph Middleton, upon which much of this material is very loosely based, are occasionally quoted verbatim, and that the letter from the Bishop of Zacatecas, in the final chapter, is substantially the same as one written after the death of Dr. Middleton in Mexico. The early San Francisco street sermons of Reverend William Taylor are twice drawn upon with minor alterations; several paragraphs are similarly used from J. M. Grant’s The Truth for the Mormons, published in the middle 1800’S; and two paragraphs followed closely from the collected journals of Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California, published in London in 1849.

  The author is, of course, especially grateful to his wife, whose assistance throughout the preparation of this book and whose cheerful encouragement in the face of depressing odds were far beyond the call of marital duty.

  R.L.T.

  PRINCIPAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

  American Notes, by Charles Dickens

  George W. Applegate: Letters from him and his father, Lisbon Applegate, about their journey to California by Panama and life in California and at the mines, 1849 to 1891

  John Wodehouse Audubon and Others: Memorandum of an agreement made, January 27, 1849, relating to the organization of an overland company, leaving New York for California, February 7, 1849

  Roger Sherman Baldwin: Letters to his family and other correspondence, written during his journey from New York to California by Nicaragua, and his stay in California, 1849 to 1856

  The Book Needed for the Times, Containing the Latest Well-Authenticated Facts from the Gold Mines, by Daniel Walton

  A Brief Biographical Sketch of James Bridger, by John B. Colton
The California and Australia Gold Rushes, by Amos S. Pittman

  California and Its Gold Regions, by Fayette Robinson

  California as It Is, and as It May Be, or, A Guide to the Gold Region, by Felix Paul Wierzbicki

  Capture and Escape, or Life among the Sioux, by Mrs. Sarah Larimer

  Capture and Rescue of Rebecca J. Fisher (by Rebecca Fisher)

  Captured and Branded by the Comanche Indians, by Edwin Eastman Captured by the Indians, by Mrs. Minnie Carrigan

  The Child Captives, by Margaret Hosmer

  The City of Saints, by Richard Burton

  René August Chouteau: Two letters, in French, to William Grant

  Damon’s Trip to Lower Oregon and Upper California Death Valley in 1849, by William Lewis

  Der Deutsche Answanderer nach den Verinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, by Alexander Ziegler

  News, The Deserei, 1850 to 1898

  Diary of a Journey from Burlington, Vermont, to St. Louis, and across the Plains to Sacramento; and of His Stay in California, 1849 to 1851, by Gurdon Backus

  Diary of a Journey from Iowa, Overland to California, 1849; Experiences at the Mines, and the Voyage Home by the Isthmus, 1851, by P. C. Tiffany

  Diary of a Journey from Warren, Pennsylvania, to California, 1849 by Philip Badman

  Diary of a Physician in California, by James Lawrence Tyson

  Diary of an Overland Journey from Independence, Missouri, to Weaverville, California, 1850, by Abram Krill

  Diary of an Overland Journey to Great Salt Lake City, 1849, by Robert Bond

  Diary of Rev. Edward J. Willis, Giving Account of Travell from Independence, Missouri, to California in 1849, across the Plains

  Down the Century with Stewart’s (STEWART DRY GOODS CO.) 1846—1946, by Isabel McLerman McMeekin

  Simon Doyle: Journals and letters describing his overland journeys from Illinois to California in 1849 and 1854, his life in the mines, and his return journey in 1856 by Panama

  Eclectic Practice of Medicine, by John M. Scudder, M.D. (from the personal library of the author’s grandfather, Dr. Hodge Scott Taylor, of Golconda, Illinois)

  Eighteen Years Captivity among the Indians, by Joseph Barney

  The Emigrants’ Guide to California, by Joseph E. Ware

  The Emigrant’s Guide to the Gold Mines, by Henry I. Simpson

  En Route to California, 1850, by Caleb Booth

  An Excursion to California, over the Prairie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Siena Nevada, with a Stroll through the Diggings and Ranches of That Country, by William Kelley, J. P.

  Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, Including a Reconnaissance of a New Route through the Rocky Mountains, in 1849, by Howard Stansbury, Captain Corps Topographical Engineers, U. S. Army

  A Few Choice Samples of Mormon Practices and Sermons

  Filings from an Old Saw—Reminiscences of San Francisco, by Joseph T. Downey

  President Millard Fillmore: Reports to Him from Judges Sent to Utah Fort Bridger, by Col. Albert G. Brackett

  Four Months among the Gold-finders in Alta California, by Henry Vizetelly

  A Frenchman in the Gold Rush, by Ernest de Massey

  Friend, The Honolulu

  Fruits of Mormonism, or a Fair and Candid Statement of Facts Illustrative of Mormon Principles, Mormon Policy and Mormon Character, by More than 40 Eye-Witnesses, by Nelson Slater

  Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, by John Charles Fremont

  Girl Captives of the Cheyennes, by Mrs. Grace E. Meredith

  Gleanings by the Way, by J. A. Clark

  The Gold Places of California, by Samuel Augustus Mitchell

  The Gold Regions of California, by George Foster

  The Gold-Seeker’s Manual, by David Thomas Ansted

  Granville Company Diary, from Zanesville, Ohio, to the Feather River Valley, 1849

  Great Salt Lake City: ordinances passed by the Legislative Council and ordered to be printed

  Grey-Hawk: John Tanner’s Captivity among the Indians Guide to California, and the Mines, with a General Description of the Country, by G. S. Isham

  Haldeman’s Picture of Louisville, by Peabody Poor (directory and business advertiser)

  History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins

  History of Louisville, by Ben Casseday

  History of the Ohio Falls Cities and Their Counties

  Hooper’s Medical Dictionary

  In Captivity, the Experience, Privations, and Dangers of Samuel J. Brown and Others While Prisoners of the Hostile Sioux During the Massacre and War of 1862

  The Indian Captive, by Matther Brayton

  Indian Horrors of the Fifties, by Jesse H. Alexander

  Instructions For Collecting, Testing, Melting and Assaying Gold, with a Description of the Process for Distinguishing Native Gold, by Edward N. Kent

  William Henry Jackson: Indian names from his Indian portraits

  Journal of a Voyage to California, and Life in the Gold Diggings. And Also of a Voyage from California to the Sandwich Islands, by Albert Lyman

  Journal of an Overland Journey from Indiana to California, 1852, by D. B. Andrews

  Journal of an Overland Journey from Rochester, Wisconsin, to Georgetown, California, 1850, by Abial Whitman

  Journal of John Wood, as Kept by Him while Traveling from Cincinnati to the Gold Diggings in California, in the Spring and Summer of 1850

  A Journal of the Overland Route to California and the Gold Mines, by Lorenzo D. Aldrich

  Journal of the Suffering and Hardships of Capt. Parker H. French’s Overland Expedition to California, Which Left New York City, May 13, 1850, and Arrived at San Francisco, Dec. 14, by William Miles

  Journal of Travel across the Plains to California and Guide to Future Emigrants, by J. Shepherd

  Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, by Joel Palmer

  A Journal of Travels to and from California, with Full Details of the Hardships and Privations, also a Description of the Country, Mines, Cities, Towns, etc., by John T. Clapp

  Journal on & of the Route to California, by F. D. Everts

  A Journal to Salt Lake City, by Jules Rémy

  Latter-Day Saints in Utah, by Franklin Dewey Richards

  Letters from the East and from the West, by Frederick Hall Letters of a California Pioneer, by Moses Ellis

  Life & Adventures among the Indians of the Far West in 1829, by Mrs. Gertrude Morgan

  Life and Adventures of William Filley, Who Was Stolen from His Home in Jackson, Michigan, by the Indians, August 3rd, 1837, and His Safe Return from Captivity, Oct. 19, 1866, after an Absence of Twenty-nine Years (by William Filley)

  A Live Woman in the Mines, by Alonzo Delano

  Louisville, Her Commercial, Manufacturing and Social Advantages, by Richard Deering

  Louisville, 1780–1892, by Paul B. Woodlief

  Louisville, the Gateway City, by I. M. McMeekin

  Louisville Directory, 1848–1849, by J. B. Jegli

  Memoirs of L. C. McKeeby, 1809, containing a description of his journey to California in 1850

  Memorial History of Louisville, by J. S. Johnston

  Men and Manners, by Thomas Hamilton

  Dr. Joseph Middleton: (of Louisville, Kentucky) His letters and journal

  The Miner’s Own Book Expositor, The Mormon

  The Mormons; or Latter-Day Saints, by Henry Mayhew

  The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, by Lt J. W. Gunnison of the Topographical Engineers

  Mormon Sacred Hymns

  Mormon Way-Bill to the Gold Mines, by Joseph Cain

  Mrs. Huggins’ Account as a Minnesota Captive

  Names & Customs of Several Indian Tribes Located West of the Mississippi, by John Dunn Hunter

  Narrative of a Journey to California in 1849, L. N. Weed

  Narrative of My Captivity among the Sioux Indians, by Ann Coleson

  Narrative of My Captivity among the Sioux Indians by Mrs. Fanny
Kelly

  Nine Years among the Indians, by Herman Lehmann

  Notes on Upper California, from The American Journal of Science and Arts, 1849, by James Dana

  The Ohio River, by Archer Butler Hulbert

  O-Kee-Pa of the Mandans, by George Catlin

  The Old Oregon Trail: A map by the American Pioneer Trails Association

  The Outlaw Years, by Robert Coats

  An Outline History of an Expedition to California Containing the Fate of the “Get All You Can Mining Association,” 1849

  Paintings and Names of North American Indians, by George Catlin

  Palmer’s Journals

  The Plains, by Isaac Cooper

  Prairie Schooner Detours, by Irene D. Paden

  Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860, by Mary Allen Hafen

  Reporter, The Samoan

  A Ride over the Rocky Mountains to Oregon and California. With a Glance at Some of the Tropical Islands, Including the West Indies and the Sandwich Islands, by the Hon. Henry John Coke

  The Rocky Mountain Letters of Robert Campbell

  St. Maur, or, The Captive Babes Recovered

  The San Francisco City Directory, Sept. 1, 1850

  Seven Years of Street Preaching in San Francisco, California, by the Reverend William Taylor

  Sidney’s Emigrant’s Journal

  Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings, by Daniel B. Woods

  Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees, by Sarah E. Wakefield

  Sketches of California, 1848, by Frederick A. Gay

  Steamboats on the Western Rivers, by Louis C. Hunter

  Stewart Dry Goods Company, Louisville, in 1846

  The Story of My Capture and Escape during the Minnesota Massacre of 1862, by Mrs. Helen Mar

  Sufferings of the California Emigrants in 1847, by John Sinclair

  Three Months Captivity among the Indians, by Miss Abigail Gardiner