HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID
RG1134.AM: Jacob Allender
Reminiscence: Undated
Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio: Overland traveler to California gold fields
Size: One item (10 pages)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Jacob Allender left Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio on March 20, 1849, with a wagon train bound for the gold fields of California. Besides Allender, other members of the group included Ralph Bancroft, Joseph Bradbury, Frank Brainard, William Cady, John Conwell, Thomas Holmes, Asbury Johnson, (his brother) Henry Johnson, Dr. Y.H. Jones, Lewis Lewton, and James Shimer. After running a boarding house for other gold miners in California, the author returned to Ohio in 1851.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
This collection consists of a set of undated reminiscences. This item, entitled “Adventure and Experience of a Forty-Niner,” relates to Jacob Allender’s experiences traveling from Ohio to the California gold fields in 1849. The reminiscence traces his route by steamboat from Ohio to St. Louis, where he gathered supplies for the journey; up the Missouri River by steamboat to Weston, Missouri; crossing the Missouri at Fort Childs (old Fort Kearny); across Nebraska to Fort Laramie; through South Pass to the Green River; through the Sublette Cut-off to Fort Hall; along the Snake and Humboldt Rivers; and through the desert and the Sierra Mountains. Eighty-five days after crossing the Missouri River into Nebraska, Allender reached his first mining camp on Weber Creek.
Note: Accounts of this group’s expedition were published in the following newspapers:
Evening Gazette (Reno, NV), July 7, 1915
Democrat Sentinel (Cadiz, OH), July 22, 1915
For an on-line account of the expedition and more information about one of the members (James Shimer), see the Mariposa County History and Genealogy Research page.
INVENTORY
Reminiscence, “Adventure and Experience of a Forty Niner,” by Jacob Allender, undated
Subject headings:
Allender, Jacob
California — History
Gold mining
Miners — California
Overland journeys to the Pacific
Overland trails
Revised TMM 04-18-2008
