HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID
RG1428.AM: Charles Stackhouse, 1827-1909
Reminiscences: ca. 1907
Cambridge, Henry County, Illinois: Farmer
Size: One folder
BACKGROUND NOTE
Born in Pennsylvania on June 13, 1827, Charles Stackhouse eventually settled at Cambridge, Illinois, by the late 1840s. In 1849, he undertook an overland journey from Illinois to the gold fields of California. He reached Sacramento City, California, on November 5, 1849. He worked in the gold fields for eighteen months before returning to Cambridge, Illinois, in 1851. Stackhouse married Hannah Elm on December 25, 1852. Stackhouse farmed near Cambridge, Illinois, the rest of his life. Charles Stackhouse died on July 28, 1909. He and his wife, Hannah, are buried in Rosedale Cemetery at Cambridge, Illinois.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The collection consists of one folder of containing the reminiscences of Charles Stackhouse. Included are one manuscript copy and two typed transcriptions. In the reminiscences, Stackhouse describes his 1849 trip from Illinois to California. He describes the landscape, wildlife, encounters with Native Americans, and stopping at Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory. Included is a 1907 letter from Stackhouse to the Nebraska State Historical Society giving some additional information about his overland journey.
Note: This reminiscence was serialized and published in the Cambridge (Illinois) Chronicle newspaper in fifteen installments between November 28, 1907 and March 5, 1908.
INVENTORY
Reminiscences – “Experience of an Overland Traveler to California in 1849, in pursuit of gold,” by Charles Stackhouse
Subject headings:
Fort Kearny (Neb.)
Forty-niners
Frontier and pioneer life
Gold mines and mining — California
Indians of North America
Overland journeys to the Pacific
Reminiscences
Stackhouse, Charles, 1827-1909
West (U.S.) — Description and travel
Revised TMM 01-28-2020
