From New Orleans to San Fransisco in '49 [pp. 189-205]

From New Orleans to San Francisco in'49.
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO SAN FRANCISCO IN'49.
I HAVE heard and read the accounts of
many journeys to California in the
eventful years between I1840 and I1850;
but the accounts were all given by those
who were of mature years at the time
of making those journeys. I made the
journey to California in 1849. I was
only a little girl in my tenth year at
that time; but the journey was so
fraught with trouble, hardships, and suffering, that it made an impression on
my mind that forty-one years have not
erased or dimmed.
At the time of the discovery of gold
in California our family, which consisted
of father, mother, and six children (two
boys and four girls), was living on a
large cotton plantation in Louisiana.
My father was an invalid, having suffered greatly from inflammatory rheumatism for many years. His sickness had
made him very whimsical, and when he
became possessed of a notion he could
be influenced by no one. He read all
the marvelous reports of the discovery
of gold, and though many of our friends
doubted their truth, or thought the reports greatly exaggerated, he believed
them all. In the early part of February
of'49 he received a letter from a friend
by the name of Bartlett, who had accompanied Fremont on his last expedition. Mr. Bartlett gave a glowing account of the great gold fields. He told
of great fortunes that had been made
in an incredibly short time, and confirmed all the wonderful accounts which
the papers had given. Father read the
letter aloud to us, then turned to mother
and said that we were all going to Californila.
Mother thought that he was joking.
But when she became convinced that
he was in earnest, she used every argument that she was mistress of to induce
him to give up the wild idea. It was of
no use. Before he went to bed that
night all his plans were laid for the trip.
Friends came and told himn of the absurd ity of thinking of such a journey in his
feeble state of health, especially with a
family of helpless little children. All
that they could say was of no avail. He
would go in spite of all opposition.
He immediately had an auction and
sold off all his personal property, put
the plantation into the hands of an
agent, and started for New Orleans.
He expected to take passage in the first
ship that was to sail around the Horn,
as his physicians had told him that he
could not possibly live to make the
journey by any other route. But when
we arrived at New Orleans he found
that although there were several ships
fitting out to go to San Francisco via
Cape Horn, none of them would be
ready to sail in less than two weeks.
His impatience to start was so great
that he determined to take passage in
a steamer that was to leave for the Isthmus of Panama in six days.
He then at once began to lay in a two
years' supply of provisions and clothing
for the family, together with a complete
camping and mining outfit. He also
bought a set of carpenter's tools and
nails, locks, hinges, paints, oils, doors,
and windows, sufficient for a good-sized
house. These purchases necessitated
the outlay of considerable money, which,
had we gone via Cape Horn, would
have been money well invested, as all
the articles were worth at that time
from twenty to a hundred per cent more
in San Francisco than in New Orleans.
But my father, like thousands of others
in those days, did not for a moment
consider how those things were to be
carried across the Isthmus.
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