Gold Rush Era Letters

Nebraska Territory June 12 1850

Dear Sister I take this opportunity to write to you it is the first and will probably be the last before my arrival in California in consequence of a misunderstanding I altered my my mind about going to Santa Fe and I met a man named Taylor who Wished me to go with him to California and nothing Could have pleased me better as I have been wishing to go for the last two years so I Joined in and concluded to go. the reason I have not written before is that in the hurry and confusion of getting started I had no time to write as we left Independence on the 11 of may [May]. my health so far has been better than the last six months if possible I was home if possible and I have really enjoyed myself on the trip so far. the scenery so far has been sublime and a man gets paid for his trouble as he passes along we have just crossed the South fork of the platte river [Platte River]. Which I can assure you was no easy matter when you consider that the river is about a mile across. in the way we crossed it the water came nearly to the top of the waggon [wagon] boxes and the current is very strong nearly as strong as the Hudson in the time of a freshet. I cannot give you a detailed account of my journey but if you will get a book named What I Saw in California by Bryant you can see a full description of our journey for so far his Descriptions are correct to a letter but the future I cannot vouch for. as I said we left Independence on the 11th of may [May] before we got five miles we broke our waggon [wagon] tongue which detained us until the morning of the 13th at 11 o clock [o'clock] our course was across a beautiful prarie [prairie] late in the afternoon we crossed the big blue river the next day we crossed the line and came into the Indian territory the first tribe we came to were the Shawnees. on the 16th we crossed a large stream called Bulls Creek when we came in the Kansas tribe of Indians. on 19th we crossed the Kansas river there is a ferry on this river. We then came to the tribe of the potawatamies [Potawatomi]. on the 20th we came to a large creek with steep banks so steep the waggons [wagons] down with ropes