This Land in My Land

Traveling back in time to a wide open West.  Before the Gold Rush.  A nearly empty continent west of the Allegheny Mountains.  The Great Land Rush of the 19th century in America.  When there was no government rule, just land for the taking.  Or was there?

The western public lands were technically under the control of the Federal government headquartered in the East.  The belief was that you could not deal with land at a distance without an accurate definition of what you were dealing with.  This led to surveying the lands into rectangle townships - each six miles square with 36 sections, each a mile square of 640 acres.  The sale of these large tracts of land to those in the East with money seemed the simplest and most orderly way of settling the West.  Beginning with Ohio in 1803 (the first public land state) the government kept the title to all ungranted land with the exception of that for education.  Nice and orderly...

That's not how it actually happened though...the first settlers, called "squatters" were those that got there first and they didn't wait for any laws or deeds to tell them they owned the land.  They cared less and knew even less what the government said.  To have waited for protection by law would have been to lose all the advantages of being there first.  So they made their own laws.

These settlers came without proper documentation, nor the intention of adhering to any program or surveys.  They stopped here, they stopped there, according to how the land looked, how the wagon was faring, if the oxen were tired.  More times than not they didn't stay put and moved on - not really knowing where their final destination was, but hoping for the best land.  However orderly and neat might the Federal plan be, the settlement of the West was anything but that - nearly all westward movement in America in the 19th century was a land rush.

Next time...building a system of laws.

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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 15, 1846, the Oregon Treaty is signed between the US and Great Britain, establishing the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia as the boundary between the United States and British Canada.  The United States gained control of the Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana while the British retained Vancouver Island and navigation rights to part of the Columbia River. 

We'll Find a Better Way

Joe Walker intended to find a new and better way through the Sierras.  At this point six of his men decided to remain in California.   George Nidever was a talented cabinet maker and later moved to the coast and became a prosperous sea otter hunter.  Walker had no hard feelings for the men who stayed - the whole journey had been voluntary. 

In February 1834, the party of now 52 men left San Juan Bautisa with 315 horses, 47 head of cattle, 30 dogs and traveled parallel to the Sierras, looking for information on any pass through the mountains.  At what is now present day Bakersfield, they turned east up the Kern River and came to a Tubatulabel Indian Village where they learned of a pass and were offered guides to take them. 

Walker was the first white man to travel through Walker Pass - one mile above sea level but far enough south to be snow free in early winter.  In 10 years this would be an important gateway for the settlers. 

Next time...Searching the Sierras

Pioneer Pieces: That's Quite a Guest List!

Virginia City was "the place to be" in the later decades of the 1800s.  The names of national significance were many from the Pullman's who arrived by train of course, to Civil War General Sherman,  They came in private palace train cars and stately carriages and became so common place that no one seemed to notice them anymore.

President Grant, Baron Rothschild, and Artemas Ward arrived, dined and attended Piper's Opera House without anyone bothering to note it in the newspapers.  After all the help Nevada provided the Union during the Civil War, they were old friends :)

Senators William W Stewart and John Perceival Jones were the first "silver senators" whose flamboyant natures stirred up the social scene in Washington.

The first two women to live on the Comstock were Julia Bulette, a courtesan,  whose later murder was quite the topic throughout the West, and Elley Orrum, a washwoman AND Nevada's first millionaire.

Marcus Daly, the copper king of Montana and George Hearst, of the newspaper dynasty, made their first strike on the Comstock.

Adolph Sutro, cigar maker, and the most popular of San Francisco's later mayors, first found his fortunes when, against all odds and popular opinion, he built his mine tunnel into the lower mines.

Senator William Sharon whose wealthy ways even shocked San Franciscans who were used to such displays, had his beginnings in Virginia City where he was the manager of Darius Ogden Mill's Bank of California.

Along with many great performers, these "old time celebrities" made up a good percentage of the culture in Virginia City.

Next time we look at frontier newspapers...

A Melting Pot of Pioneers

The West in the early 1800s actually consisted of the Wilderness Trail - through Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana. By the 1860s and 1870s the West referred to Kansas, Oklahoma, California and Oregon, to name a few.

Many folks when thinking of the pioneers in our American History think of the "Little House" stereotypical family and community, but if you look further you'll find that many of those hardy, tough frontier people were Women, Blacks, Hispanics and Chinese.

This "melting pot" of settlers had in common a bitter battle with the environment and each other. Most of their lives were actually not devoted to fighting with Native Americans over land, or even a dealing with a great crop disaster - they led ordinary lives. They devoted their days to farming, mining, ranching, trapping and trading, and church.

One of the funniest commercials on TV is a couple on a covered wagon - he complaining about her 50 wagons of shoes and suggesting they use Public Storage next time. This is a great favorite because I too love shoes :) and second because it shows humor associated with the frontier life. We often times think of the sepia photos of their hard faces and conclude that these people were anything but happy. But they enjoyed life! They loved adventure and took wagons full of their possessions, suffering long journeys to find that adventure and new life.

I often think of what it must have been like for a child whose parents came in one day and said "pack up your bed, we are moving west" with no idea what was ahead of them but setting out with everything they could carry, including the family's milking cow and working oxen. What fun to have been a child on that adventure!

On the other hand, I imagine how I would do day-to-day tasks without those inventions that we have come to take for granted. Milking a cow at 6 am, churning the butter and baking the bread everyday would make me appreciate my daily bread a whole lot more!

Check out the short poll on the side - what modern convenience would you be most unwilling to live without?

Since we started on the wagon train today, one of the most popular meal for traveling was beans. And with only an open campfire to cook on, soup was easy and kept well for the next meal.

Here is a basic pioneer bean soup recipes circa 1863.

Bean Soup
1/2 pound uncooked navy beans
3/4 pound of ham shank or fat back/salt pork
1 cup diced potatoes uncooked
3/4 cup diced onion
Salt and Pepper, Parsley
Optional if available: 3 tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped

Cover beans with cold water and soak overnight. Rinse beans, cover with fresh water and cook until tender and then strain. Cover the meat with cold water and simmer until tender, skimming off any fat. Add the beans, potatoes and onion to the meat and simmer gently. When the vegetables are almost tender, add the tomatoes (if using them), salt, pepper and parsley. Cook slowly until the vegetables are ready. Serve immediately - tastes better the second day.
Serves 6.

If you have comments about the diversity of pioneers or the Westward journey from a child's perspective, please post below. I will explore more in the next week or so about the diversity of pioneers.

Have a great day!