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California '46 to
'88
These are excerpts
from the book by Jacob Wright Harlan of his memories as a California pioneer.
The book is 242 pages.
CHAPTER 3: ARRIVING
IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1846
SHORT time after this my uncle sent me to his brother, Uncle George, who lived in Michigan and had a family
consisting of his wife and six children. They all received me with great kindness and took the best of care of me;
in fact, except my relations with my grandmother, which I have described, this was about the first real
sympathetic kindness that had yet been extended to me.
Some time after my going to live with my Uncle George he sent his son Joel and me to Niles, Michigan, with a
load of wheat. Joel and I were of about the same age. He was an excellent fellow and we were good friends. When at Niles we received from a friend of his father, Hasting's Work on California
and Oregon . I believe my uncle had known Hastings, who had left Michigan in 1844. When we had read the
book, my uncle declared that as soon as harvest was over and his grain sold, he would sell his farm and leave
for California. Accordingly, these sales having been made and necessaries provided for the journey, we all
started on our pilgrimage toward the Pacific Coast, on October 14th, 1845.
We had eleven wagons, ten of our teams being of oxen, and one of horses.
When I first arrived in Yerba Buena--now San Francisco--the Mormons were strong there. If one needed a
laborer to do a piece of work, the chance was that a Mormon would be on hand to do it. If one wished to have
his clothes washed, a Mormon woman would be the washerwoman. When a ball was given to Com. Stockton, at
Leidesdorff's house, at the corner of Kearny and Clay streets, the majority, if not all, of the females were
Mormon women. All this was happily swamped and lost in the flood of immigration, which the discovery of gold
directed to California, and the Mormons had to take a back seat.
LIFE
IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1846
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