The year 1849 has a peculiarly thrilling sensation to the CaliforniaPioneer, not realized by those who came at a later date. My purpose inrecording some of my recollections of early days is not for publicationnor aggrandizement, but that it may be deposited in the archives of mydescendants, that I was one of those adventurers who left the GreenMountains of Vermont to cross the plains to California, the ElDorado—the Land of Gold.
In starting out I went to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati,St. Louis and Independence, Missouri. Here I joined the first mule trainof Turner, Allen & Co.'s Pioneer Line. It consisted of forty wagons, onehundred and fifty mules, and about one hundred and fifty passengers. Weleft the frontier on the fourteenth of May 1849, and here is where ourhardships commenced. Many of us had never known what it was to "campout" and do our own cooking. Some of the mules were wild and unbroken,sometimes inside the traces, sometimes outside; sometimes down,sometimes up; sometimes one end forward and sometimes the other; butafter a week or two they got sobered down so as to do very well.
Our first campfire at night was on the Little Blue River, a few milesfrom Independence; it was after dark when we came to a halt, and it wasmy friend Gross' turn to cook, while the rest brought him wood and waterand made a fire for him by the side of a large stump. I knew he was afractious man, so I climbed into one of the wagons where I could see howhe got along. The first thing that attracted my attention was the coffeepot upside down, next away went the bacon out of the pan into the fire.By this time he was getting warm inside as well as outside, and I couldhear some small "cuss words"; next he looked into the Dutch oven, andsaw that his dough had turned to charcoal. I got down into the wagon outof sight, and peeked through a crack; he grew furious, danced around thefire, and the air was full of big words. Finally we got a little coffeeand some cakes and bacon, then I undertook to do a little sleeping butit was no go. Thus ended my first night on the Plains.
In the morning we started on our journey to travel over a leveluntimbered, uninhabited country for nearly four hundred miles, withoutanything of especial interest occurring save cholera, from which therewas terrible suffering. We lost about seventy-five of our number beforewe reached Fort Laramie, seven hundred miles from Missouri.
There was a Dutchman in my mess by the name of Lamalfa, who understoodbut little of English. We had dubbed him "Macaroni" for having brought alot of the stuff with him and on our second night out it came his turnto stand guard. He was detailed to the inner guard and instructed as tohis duties. On the relief of the outer sentinel and his return to camp,Lamalf