cam_MarkDManlove_B017_F013_003A

By [[Mark D. Manlove]]. AN OVERLAND TRIP TO THE CALIFORNIA GOLD FIELDS. Personal Experiences of [[Mark D. Manlove]] a Forty Niner [Forty-niner]. In the spring of '49, my brothers John, Jonathan and myself decided to go to the California gold fields. We got a wagon and provisions and put them on a steamboat at Attica [[Attica, Indiana]] on the Wabash [Wabash River] and went to St. Louis [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. There I met an old friend [[Rufus Icet]], who lived in St. Louis and he said he had made up a company and wanted us to join him. This we did and bought four mules and harness in St. Louis. We, with the balance of the company, took steamboat to St. Jos, Mo. [[St. Joseph, Missouri]] We left St. Joe [[St. Joseph, Missouri]] about the tenth of May, going across the plains up the north side of Platte river [River]. The first settlement we came to was Rubedeaux [Robidoux] trading post, two hundred miles up the Platte. A Frenchman had married an Indian squaw and had a lot of little half-breed Indians. A blacksmith shop constituted the town. Traders would come in and get horses shod and Indians would get arrows sharpened. We found the covered wagon was too heavily loaded for the mules, so we packed the mules and threw away what we could not pack and left the wagon. There were six in the company now. [[Jack Pellum]] had two ponies; Leet had two good mules. Umalvany had one good pony which he rode. John, Jonathan and I had four mules, three packed and one to ride by turns. [written in pencil] Gift of daughter, [[Flora J. Manlove]], [[Jacksonville, Florida]]. Feb 1958