Newberry Library - A trip to the gold regions of the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1860 1860

A trip to the gold regions of the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1860 1860

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Open book A trip to the gold regions of the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1860 1860

Title A trip to the gold regions of the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1860 1860

Creator Young, John D. (John David), 1839-1898

Date 1860

Place Colorado, Great Plains, Illinois--Chicago, Overland Trails, Saint Joe Road

Language English

Subjects Frontier and pioneer life, Gold miners, Gold mines and mining, Indians of North America

Summary John D. Young's narrative of his 1860 round trip from Chicago to the Colorado gold fields and his experiences there, probably composed in Chicago after the trip. Contains full descriptions of encounters with frontier justice, friendly and hostile Indians (Potawatomi, Pawnee, Comanche, Arapahoe, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne), a Rocky Mountain forest fire, great buffalo herds, a "hurricane" at Marysville, and a prairie dog village. Also discussed in detail are rich Missouri farmlands poorly utilized under slavery, the Pony Express, towns and forts (Quincy, St. Joseph, Marysville, Fort Kearny, Denver, Tarryall), scenery and terrain, road conditions, diet, clothing, equipment, diggings (Tarryall, Blue River, California Gulch, etc.), methods of gold extraction, claim salting, etc.

Biographical/Historical Note Colorado gold rush participant and Ottawa, Ill., lumber merchant.

Extent 1 v. (120 p.) ; 32 cm

Format Sources, Manuscripts, Travel literature, Transcripts

User-Contributed Transcription Our journey now was over a splendid section of country along the valley of the Blue River. the trees were all bright and green forming a refreshing shade when the sun grew hot at mid day. We traveled forty miles along this stream on a perfectly smooth road and under the shade of tall forest trees it made such a contrast to the broad schorching prairie on which we were schorched for six weeks that it seemed as if we had got into paradise. After leaving that stream we had some pretty tuff times for the next fifty miles many times we almost perished from thirst we were sometimes a whole day xsposed to the fierce rays of the sun without getting a drop of water to drink. And to add to our troubles we were afraid that our remaining horse would give out, the poor creature was almost broken down from hard work and starvation, at this time we only made ten miles a day. Gladly we hailed our approach to Marysville we hoped at that place to find some sort of a hack to assist our unfortunate horse. We found the town greatly enlarged since we had passed through it. it had now quite the appearance of a business town in the States business had been quite lively there during the summer the store keepers looked stiff and important it looked like as if they were flush of money. We could not find any kind of crittre to buy or borrow so we had to commence our weary journey again on the old style, we passed through the town on Sunday morning and made ten miles that day in the evening a fierce hurricane arose quite a frequent thing in the plains and leveled Marysville with the ground the next day we saw crowds of the sufferers on their way to St Joe they had lost everything the only indications of a storm that we had was seeing some dark heavy clouds rising in the west about that time and a little rain but the wind was not unusually strong.

Transcription Status Needs review

Transcription Note This document was transcribed by volunteers as part of the Newberry Transcribe crowdsourcing initiative.

Archival Collection Title Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection

Link to Catalog View record

Call Number VAULT Ayer MS 3210

BibID 991330378805867

Rights Status No Copyright - United States

Contributing Institution Newberry Library

Newberry Open Access Policy The Newberry makes its collections available for any lawful purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without licensing or permission fees to the library, subject to these terms and conditions.

IIIF Resource Type Canvas

Size 2420px × 3804px 26.37 MB

File Created 08/21/2023

Filename 991330378805867_Ayer_MS_3210_00067.tif

Unique Identifier NL11LVRJ

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