Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
“ We came from New York via the Nicaragua Route. My sister Rose was five years old. She wandered away and was lost for hours while crossing the Isthmus. The worry and excitement so afflicted my mother she became ill and the captain of the steamer refused to take her aboard the ship on the Pacific side. My brother and sister and myself were placed in the charge of the stewardess and my mother was to be left on the Isthmus to die. Two returning pioneer miners took my sick mother in charge and forced the ship captain, at the point of a pistol, to take her aboard. The miners said they were members of The Society of California Pioneers and it was their duty to act in such emergencies. The captain's excuse was that he thought my mother had a tropical fever, which was a common occurrence among the Argonauts coming this route.
The steamer was over crowded [sic]. There were over one hundred children on board. When we arrived in San Francisco, the newspapers commented on the largest accession of women and children to the city. ”
Harriet Ashim Choynski
arrived in 1852 from Illinois