Leaving Legacies without Journals

Susan Wilson, a slave, came to California by a team across the Plains along with her three children.

Addie Stanley came with her parents from Illinois to California in 1852.

Cloye Burnett Logan-Flood came to the Pacific Coast as a slave with a white family in 1853.  When she was 11, she took a horse and rode from Oregon to Shasta, California alone.  As a Californian, she married and raised six children.

These a just a few of the female black pioneers who came to California in the 1800s where they opened schools and churches.  Although these women did not leave journals to tell of their journeys (many probably could not write) there is evidence that they strove to make the West a more hospitable place to raise their families.

Next time we will conclude our look at pioneer journals with some final thought from women's journals.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend!

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Today in Pioneer History:   On July 1, 1887, Clay Allison, eccentric gunfighter and rancher  died while driving a freight wagon to his ranch north of Pecos, Texas. A sudden jolt threw Allison from the wagon and a wheel rolled over his head, crushing his skull and neck. In 1975, Allison’s remains were moved to a grave in downtown Pecos where a granite headstone made the questionable assertion that he was a “Gentleman and Gunfighter” who “never killed a man that did not need killing.”