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Reading Notes Week 4


Sarah Eleanor Royce
  • April 1849 left Council Bluffs Iowa with 2 year old daughter
  • Settled in Grass Valley
  • "Pilgrimage Diary" writings became A Frontier Lady
"A Frontier Lady"
  • camped near Col J and his men for protection
  • Oct 21 2 arrows fired at men sleeping in neighboring camp by the fire
  • Oct 24 reached "Pleasant Valley Gold Mines"
  • rested 2-3 days, continued to Weaverville
  • Husband struck up partnership to open a store
  • Beef added to items for purchase
  • "This gave me an opportunity to see most of the dwellers in Weaverville; and observe in a small way their behavior to each other.  The majority of them were, as I have said, men of ordinary intelligence, evidently accustomed to life in an orderly community where morality and religion bore sway...Even in their intercourse with each other, they often alluded to this feeling and in the presence of a woman, then so unusual, most of them showed it in a very marked manner...Roughly reared frontier-men almost as ignorant of civilized life as savages.  Reckless bravados, carrying their characters in their faces and demeanor, even when under the restraints imposed by policy (Sarah Eleanor Royce, 139).
  • gold dust-currency

Louise Clappe (Dame Shirley) 1819-1906
  • pn name of Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
  • Born in New Jersey
  • joined husband on trip around Cape Horn in 1850
  • set up medical practice in Rich Bar
  • composed 23 letters to her sister Molly in Massachusetts
  • Returned to San Francisco, letters published in The Pioneer
"A  Trip into the Mines"
  • September 20, 1851 Rich Bar 800 yards in length 30 in width
  • attend courses of lectures on Geology by America's greatest illustrator Dr. H.
  • Visited the "Office" met one of the finders of Rich Bar
  • "...I mention this, as an instance, that nothing can be done in California without the sanctifying influence of the spirit; and it generally appreas in much more "questionable shape" than that of sparkling wine" (Louise Clappe Dame Shirley, 150)
  • two men overturned a rock obtained $256 of gold, by nightfall all of rich bar was "claimed" 
  • September 22, 1851 successful amputation

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