Name/Title
Booklet, Gold Journal of Edwin HillyerDescription
Travel log of Edwin Hillyer; bound with a heavy cardboardlike cover. This is typed from the original hand written journal. A relative, Frederic J. Ford, had this in his possession. This was donated by Renee Wahlen, daughter of Ted Wahlen, where the booklet was found.
Frederic J. Ford
23141 LA Cadena Drive
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
October 25, 1992
Dear Relative:
Being in possession of a 1903 copy of Edwin Hillyer's complete Gold Journal, I felt that you might also like reading and having it available.
I have enjoyed the Overland Journal since I was young and was pleasantly surprised in 1980 when my father was given the complete Journal, with the missing California portion, after it had been missing for over 50 years. For reasons of clarity the Overland portion of the Journal printed here is one edited and published in 1955 by the WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY along with a forward and endnote from that same publication. And, of course, the California and return portion has been copied directly fro the original journal by me.
Also included are several letters written by Edwin's father, Daniel Hillyer, the obituary of Edwin's son-in-law C. H. Ford, Hannibal Ford's genealogical charts, and some other genealogy materials showing family connections with three Soldiers of the American Revolution.
Please read
Extended Description: Travel log of Edwin Hillyer; bound with a heavy cardboardlike cover. This is typed from the original hand written journal. A relative, Frederic J. Ford, had this in his possession. This was donated by Renee Wahlen, daughter of Ted Wahlen, where the booklet was found.
Frederic J. Ford
23141 LA Cadena Drive
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
October 25, 1992
Dear Relative:
Being in possession of a 1903 copy of Edwin Hillyer's complete Gold Journal, I felt that you might also like reading and having it available.
I have enjoyed the Overland Journal since I was young and was pleasantly surprised in 1980 when my father was given the complete Journal, with the missing California portion, after it had been missing for over 50 years. For reasons of clarity the Overland portion of the Journal printed here is one edited and published in 1955 by the WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY along with a forward and endnote from that same publication. And, of course, the California and return portion has been copied directly fro the original journal by me.
Also included are several letters written by Edwin's father, Daniel Hillyer, the obituary of Edwin's son-in-law C. H. Ford, Hannibal Ford's genealogical charts, and some other genealogy materials showing family connections with three Soldiers of the American Revolution.
Please read and enjoy this edition and do with it as you please. If you have any questions or comments about anything here I would be most happy to hear from you. Also, if you know of anyone who should get a copy please let me know.
Sincerely yours,
Frederic J. Ford
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A TRIP FROM WAUPUN WISCONSIN, Via. CLEVELAND CINCINNATI, ST. LOUIS, COUNCIL BLUFFS AND SALT LAKE TO CALIFORNIA, in 1849 by TEAN AND THE RETURN Via ACAPULCO, CITY OF MEXICO, VERA CRUZ, NEW ORLEANS, MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO RIVERS, AND THE LAKES TO WISCONSIN IN 1851 1852 BY EDWIN HILLYER
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CONTENTS:
LETTER OF PREFACE
YELLOW FEVER LETTER
GOLD JOURNAL FORWARD
OVERLAND TO CALIFORNIA
Atwater
Independence
On the Trail
Indians - Death of Roe
Chimney Rock
Fort Laramie
Devil's Gate
Salt Lake City
Humboldt Sink
Sacramento
Endnote
LOST JOURNAL - IN CALIFORNIA
San Francisco
Sacramento
Great Flood of January 1850
In the Mines
Plague and Departure for Home
City of Mexico
First Bullfight After the Mexican War
New Orleans
Home
Endnote
DANIEL HILLYER LETTER OF 3/24/1849
RELATIVES IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY ARMY
CHARLES HOWE FORD - OBITUARY
HANNIBAL FORD
Letter of December 25, 1945
Genealogy Charts
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YELLOW FEVER LETTER
February 10, 1849
Edwin Hillyer
Waupun, Wisconsin
Beloved Son:
It was with pleasure I received your letter dated January 18th and hear how you were getting along and was in hopes that your living so far north that the yellow fever would not reach you but I was mistaken for it is as bad as the cholera -- it goes into all climates and is as dangerous or more so for one kills immediately and the other more slow but is equally sure in its effects some live through but never get really over it and most all wish that they had been more prudent and left out of harms way and not exposed themselves.
I would advise you and Talcott if you have the iron to take ten doses of consideration of one hour each early in the morning before breakfast while your head is clear ten doses of resolution enough to have the effect last you through the whole day and enough self determination that you are doing well enough where you are and will not run at every fool's whistle and 365 doses a year for the years of home sweet home for me. If I don't get all the world to myself for I shall not want riches of worldly things long but I will get those riches that will insure me an entrance on through the gate of the New Jerusalem where all is happiness and love where the streets are pure gold and there is no night there.
Now I have my proscription and hope you be careful and take them carefully and surely as your health will admit until perfectly cured and if this does not cure I don't know what will and leave your health good. But if you are determined to go through with the medicine that so many say will cure if taken in a certain place let me tell you it is not so and you will find most all will die for to many are taking it and it is adulterated. I was glad to hear that you did not go bail for Rufus and hope he will pay all up and do better for the future and hope he will get some land before he spends what he has got and work better than he has and hope you will stick to your business as long as you can make it profitable and not always be thinking that another place is better and if I was there and could do better but you have not tried it if you had
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Copied by Frederic J. Ford from a copy of a hand written letter from Daniel Hillyer to his son, Edwin Hillyer, prior to his departure for the gold fields in 1849. While this letter has not been edited, some license was taken in guessing at some of the words.
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you might think different now I think the rage for California is folly so many thousands going from all countries and some of the worst sort. Well provision is scarce, hold all picked up...then it will be we will steal from each other and get all we can then they will rob and murder being is restraint by religion as gold always destroys that you cannot think how had such a society is. But another thing is leaving home so long if you live but it is a great chance if you do haveing to pass through so many climates and hardships by hunger and thirst lying on the ground wet and cold you can't expect to have things as you always have for it cannot be but those that go must suffer more than all they get is worth but they will get nothing for one half or more they get is worth not so it proves when brought to New York. But how can a man leave his wife and family to run after vanity? If I was going I would bid farewell to all for I would not come back for I would hate to be laughed at for I get nothing as the rest will that you will wee soon.
But stay at home be industrious and if there is any gold there it will come of it come here and we can get it to enjoy ourselves with our familys and friends the few days we have to live here in this world for we do not want much nor want that little longer. I don't know what more to you both but I was surprised when I read your letter to find that either of you thought of going for you wrote in a former letter that you were contented haveing a home of your own and a loving wife and I hope you will try to keep them for know that a tree removed often thrives well and a rolling stone gathers no moss. Now be contented and enjoy life for it is not as long as you will find if you live until you are as old as I am it will appear only as a few months. When I look back to boyhood it seems almost impossible that time could fly so fast and I am an old man but it is even so. I have had a hard trial in the world left when 3 1/2 years old destitute of a father's care made to work hard under others care. Worked hard fared hard and tried to lay up something for old age after I was of age until I was broke down with fever and all for what. Why I will tell you it was that I might bring up my family and have them respectable. With what success you can see. I have been economical in my living not willing to see any thing wasted or squandered away I have saved something for you all so far but I can't tell what I may need before I die. You have just begun in the world you are far better off to begin than I was and will do well enough if you attend to your own affairs and be contented with your lot be frugal be industrious faithful in all you undertake and things will prosper in your hands. I have written the most of this letter to you I will try to write one to Talcott next unless I write on business then I shall write to both. Talcott I hope will think of the rivers when he goes to start for gold and throw down his hat and say I won't go to California lest I bring my apples to a bad market. I shall write no more about the gold fever at this time but will leave it for Talcott and you to make up your own minds about it. It is a general time of health here except bad colds.
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Sophia Woolcot died the 16th of January the day I wrote my last letter and said she would live but a few days. We have had no sleighing here yet and buy little snow but very cold most of the time.
My health is very good except a bad cold your mother is no better I carried her to Russell Merricks yesterday and she is not as well to day. Wells and Hamer and wives are well. Your mother sends her respects to you all she says the months will seem like years now until you come home. We heard from Mr. Coe a few days ago and Mrs. Coe's health was quite poor.
When you write again let me know where Martha lives how far from you and what directions and how they are getting along. Uncle Talcott had a letter from William and said Rufus was in jail. Has Rufus brought any land or is he going to or is he spending his property what time will you be down is your wife coming home in the spring with you is Talcott like to find him a wife this spring has he selected his land where did you and he buy any how far off how is the country setting with what sort of people is there any prairie land not taken up near you the Osage orange will make a better fence than rails it will take about five years for the hedge to grow and nothing can get through it and then it wants no repair the seed costs one dollar a grain in Columbus. Hillyer has had a bad cold for a few days so that he has not been to school and keeps him at school but I think he don't learn much.
Write soon for I want to hear all whats going on there.
I will now close my letter and I thank Angeline for the few lines she wrote to me I hope she won't let you go gold hunting on the Pacific Ocean.
Give my respects to all friends and reserve a large share for yourself and lady.
Daniel Hillyer Atwater, Ohio
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FORWARD
Written by John 0. Holzhueter
In terms of present-day communications, the California Gold Rush of 1849 was a long time aborning. On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall discovered gold while building a sawmill for John Sutter on the south fork of the American River. Not until four days later - on January 28 - did marshall become excited enough to tell his employer. Sutter, fearing the disruptive consequences of a gold rush, was dismayed, and beginning in March his fears were realized. Many of Sutter's employees quit to devote full time to digging and panning gold, and a San Francisco paper printed a short notice about the discovery.
It remained for a profiteer, however, to launch the rush in earnest. Sam Brannan, who owned a store near Sutter's Fort, planned to let others dig while he traded merchandise for dust. He visited San Francisco one day in May with a bottle of gold dust, walking through the city, waving the bottle, and broadcasting the news. Within a few weeks, San Francisco was all but deserted. The rush was on. Sutter's land was overrun - as he had anticipated -and his once immense holdings were lost; he was reduced to surviving on a California pension. Sam Brannan continued to make shrewd use of Gold Rush opportunities, and became one of California's most respected and wealthiest citizens.
Unsubstantiated rumor of the strike reached the East about six months after the discovery, and a shipload of argonauts (a term favor by the forty-niners) set out for their Eldorado (another favorite term). Embarking at an Eastern port, they made the lengthy journey around Cape Horn and sailed into San Francisco Bay on February 28, 1849. Rumor, however, was not sufficient to spark the tremendous subsequent push to California by water and land. The impetus came by way of President James K. Polk's annual message to Congress on December 6, 1848, in which he reported that an unbelievably rich discovery had been made in the West. Finally, almost a year after the fact, an "overnight" reaction occurred, and everyone was clamoring to go to California.
Three jumping-off places served overland emigrants: Independence, St Joseph, and Council Bluffs, with Independence attracting the most and Council Bluffs the fewest, or about 10 per cent of the total. The Council Bluffs trail was called the Mormon Trail, since it had been blazed along the north banks of the Platte River by the Latter Day Saints. It was shunned by emigrants from Ohio,
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Copied by Frederic J. Ford from: WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published by The State historical Society of Wisconsin / Vol. XLIX, No. 3 / Spring, 1966. Written by John O. Holzhueter.
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Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, where Mormon incidents had aroused the population.
The overland trails appealed mainly to persons west of the Alleghenies, men whose roots were in the soil and who had a rural familiarity with cattle and wagons. Gold seekers from the Eastern seaboard - men familiar with ships and salt water - usually chose a tortuous ocean journey instead, either sailing around the Horn or traversing the isthmus of Panama. Ocean journeys could take six to mine months; an overland trip as long as half a year. Men from the South often took the Santa Fe Trail or floated down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, trekked across Mexico and sailed to San Francisco usually from Acapulco.
Compared to the migrations of earlier years, that of 1849 was gigantic. Fifty persons took the north trails for every individual who traveled them in 1848. Estimates of the number of emigrants vary between 20,000 and 50,000, with a conservative modern guess at 21,500. Thus, 1849 was not a year in which the lonely wagon train wended its way across a deserted prairie, endangered by Indians. Indeed, some diarists described strings of wagons six moles long. Thanks to extremely wet weather, grass grew plentifully for draft animals, in contrast to some years. But the rain made the roads miry and the going heavy, and a violent storm in the valley of the Platte on May 29 scattered some livestock and ruined some supplies. Other hardships included accidents, drownings, and disease, which together claimed an estimated 750 lives Disease reached epidemic proportions at times. A cholera outbreak in the United States hit especially hard in the crowded jumping-off camps. and several varieties of "mountain fever" and intestinal complaints blamed on alkali were fatal to some. Indians were less a threat than popularly imagined. Indian slayings in 1849 probably accounted for no more than a dozen deaths.
What manner of man made the journey and what were his motivations? The author of this journal believed that a fair cross section of humanity was represented, with the majority being men of good will. He also believed that the emigrants, like himself, were lured by gold. But, attributing to others his own altruistic motives, he maintained that there was "no selfishness" involved. However, no one who reads Gold Rush material can fail to note the high sense of adventure with which it is permeated. There is something undeniably romantic about the argonauts and their Eldroado, a variety of romance that is at once intensely personal and yet universal: personal because the wagon trains were a made up of rugged, independent men, each with a mission; universal because the movement seemed to epitomize a national fervor, with each emigrant vicariously fulfilling the nation;s lust for adventure and gold. The forty-niners themselves may well have been too close to the event to sense the flavor of the Gold Rush that they willed to their descendants in the form of diaries and letters. More than a hundred such diaries have been found, and several associations have
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been formed to trace faithfully the routes of the various trails, 1 indicating that, today at least, the mania for gold holds less appeal than the drama of questing for it.
Wisconsin's reaction to the Gold Rush can be considered typical of the national experience. Nearly every community outfitted a contingent for the West - from cities like Milwaukee, Racine, Madison, and Janesville to villages and towns like Shullsburg, Delavan, Jefferson, Wiota, and Beetown. Nearly one-fourth of the population in Wisconsin's lead-mining region departed for the new fields, and some Wisconsin miners even followed the gold trail to Australia when the quest extended outside California in the 1850's. Among leading Wisconsinites who succumbed to gold fever were William S. Hamilton, James R. Vineyard, Hans C. Heg, Count Agoston Haraszthy, and Lucius Fairchild. But most of the Wisconsin emigrants were young men from the rank and file, men like Edwin Hillyer, a twenty-three-year-old storekeeper, and his eight companions from Waupun: A. D. Allis, Dr. John Barker, Frank Carter, E. S. Howland, E. J. Marvin, Ben Pierce, and two men whose surnames alone have survived, Wheeler and Marvin.
The Waupun group elected to travel overland to the gold fields from Independence, planing to arrive in Missouri in April in order to be ready when the prairie had sprouted enough grass to support their oxen and mules. Along the way, however, the Waupun men changed their minds and decided to leave from Council bluffs, where they joined a train of sixty-five men and thirty-five wagons. The ensuing journey was marked by accident, disease, and death, as well as light, humorous moments. Several members of the train be came ill and bad rather bad accidents. One man, not from Waupun, was killed by Indians about 135 miles from the starting point, with the trip scarcely under way. But another man, after nearly drowning with his horse, convulsed the on looking crowd by saying "Boys, boys, don't he make a fine raft?"
The man who recorded the journey was Edwin Hillyer, a native of Ohio who came to Wisconsin in 1847 to help his brother, Joseph Talcott Hillyer, operate a general store in Waupun. The Hillyer brothers were born to the tradition of the westward movement and to storekeeping as well. Their parents, Daniel and Charity (Loomis) Hillyer, moved from Granby, Connecticut, to primitive Portage County, Ohio, in 1815, and were among the first settlers in Atwater, Ohio. They operated an inn and general store, and Daniel Hillyer surveyed other Ohio counties as they were settled. Edwin, the youngest of six Hillyer children, was born September 30, 1825, and was educated in schools at Farmington and Trinsburg, Ohio. the education, both at home and in school, inculcated in him a love for books and a devotion to the Congregationalist church and temperance - traits which he exhibited throughout his life. Hillyer's abilities and education thus marked him as an individual a cut above the average forty-niner. He was enough of a leader to be
elected colonel of his wagon train; yet he was brash enough at the
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time to write that he expected little trouble from the men because I was very careful to be right. His love of books and language was exhibited in the quality of his journal: clear, understandable, interesting prose, albeit with occasional lapses in spelling and grammar. He was devoted enough to his God to insist that his wagon train observe Sundays as a day of rest for both man and beast, and also for observing the sabbath with hymns and contemplation. This streak of righteousness also exhibited itself in a disapproval of gambling, and in later life he became president of the Wisconsin Temperance Alliance.
Despite his sober inclinations, Hillyer was not above a good time, and he grasped business opportunities where he found them. He enjoyed dancing and he loved conversation and made friends rather easily on his trip, even to the point of being able to borrow money from complete strangers. He was adventuresome enough to undertake the strenuous journey and to leave behind his twentyone-year-old bride of ten months without knowing when, or if, he would see her again. Hillyer insisted that the visited California because of the financial opportunities to be found there and because he wanted to make a fortune for his wife and hoped-for family. It was the reaction of a "boy," Mrs. Hillyer said later. Boyish as his enthusiasm may have been, Hillyer was serious in his desire to do the best thing for his wife and was well on his way towards mature manhood.
Mrs. Hillyer was born Angeline Hannah Coe in Randolph, Ohio, on July 7, 1827, and was married to Hillyer on April 4, 1848. She bore the wrench of departure with fortitude, much as women accept the departures of men going off to war. Mrs. Hillyer shared with her husband a love of church and literature and an abhorrence of liquor, gambling, and the coarse things of life.
THE DIARY of Edwin Hillyer is an interesting addition to the lore of the Gold Rush for several reasons. It details an Indian slaying - one of the few chronicled by an 1849 emigrant; it records a route taken by a minority of forty-niners; and because Hillyer wrote vividly, with an eye to explaining things to his family back in Ohio, it provides sufficient detail to make the journey fresh and exciting. But most importantly, the journal demonstrates how a young man gained maturity and a measure of wisdom while crossing the plains in 1849.
The Hillyer journal was given to the Historical Society in 1961 by Forrest C. Middleton of Madison, WI who purchased it at auction. Another copy is in the hands of a great-grandson, Frederick Ford of Bayport, Minnesota. Hillyer revised the journal and had it typewritten in 1903, titling it "A trip from Waupun, Wisconsin, Via Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Council Bluffs and Salt Lake to California, in 1849 by Team and the Return Via Acapulco, city of Mexico, Vera Cruz, New Orleans, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and the Lakes to Wisconsin in 1851-1852." the 1903 version, however, concludes with Hillyer's arrival in Sacramento. The original diary has not been found. In the interests of space, some repetitious
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portions have been deleted, where indicated by ellipses. Unusual spellings employed by Hillyer have been retained, but typing errors appearing in the 1903 manuscript have been corrected.
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FROM WAUPUN TO SACRAMENTO IN 1849
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In the Spring of 1849 - as one of the company of gold seekers - I started with my wife to make the journey from Wisconsin to Ohio where my wife was to remain with her father, whilst I got rich in the land of gold. We left Waupun in one of the Stage Company's Mud Wagons. It was cold and disagreeable but we reached Milwaukee in safety. In leaving Milwaukee we were put into a stage on runners drawn by four horses. The snow was soft and slushy, and the runners cut in almost...to the solid earth below. Our first experience was a turn over of the stage. Fortunately the snow was drifted and soft. The top of the stage was somewhat broken. My wife was the only lady passenger. Beside the road were large piles of cord wood. We men (for there were nine) crawled out and helped my wife out and onto a pile of the wood and those piles of wood were our only dry spots after we removed the snow. We were probably an hour in getting the horses up and stage righted, and small breaks mended. We gad not gotten very warm during the time, but we hurried in and were off toward Chicago. On our way and before we reached Chicago we turned over five times, but none were hurt and all were good natured and could eat a good meal when we got a chance.
The stage got stalled in the mud a few times on the way and one time in the night when we were asleep. We slept until the break of day and looking out into the quiet morning we found that we were stranded in the mud without team or driver and not a building near. The wheels of the stage were up to the hubs in mud and frozen in. No one grumbling or swearing, but we all got as comfortably fixed as we could and we men resumed our slumbers. About sunrise we began to gear sounds of returning life, and a slight motion to our palace on wheels. Most of the passengers were out in the mud by this time and we found four yoke of oxen, big and strong, being hitched to our stage, and soon by big words, and cracking whips we began to move (for I had remained aboard the stage with my wife). The movement was slow but sure and about nine O'clock and making about three miles and hour we reached a way side inn, and a breakfast inviting us. Oh! didn't we eat. This pleasure was soon over and we were away again, through the mud for Chicago.
This was a fair example of our roads, until we struck the sands of Michigan, when they improved. The Maumee Swamp through which we passed between Adrian and Toledo was not a good representation of the Garden of Eden, as described to us. It seemed to rain everywhere. The swamps, the lakes, the streams were all full to overflowing and the great mass of ice was lifted and broken into immense cakes and started on their way down the Maumee river toward the Lake. We reached Toledo. The river was a roaring flood. The warehouses along it were all destroyed...At breakfast we learned that the only bridge was gone, and not a plank remaining. Our stage carried the mail, and if possible must go forward. We went with it to the river, but that raging stream was full of floating cakes of ice, many of them 30 or 40 feet square and two and one half feet thick turning round and round as they floated and ground together on their downward way, sometimes crashing together and throwing the water into the air and then again a space of open water between the cakes of ice. The mail must go. A large stout yawl boat was procured with two strong boatmen to row, and one with a boat hook to ward off the ice cakes, buy they were soon to start. The mail was loaded in piled well in the stern and after much persuasion; they took my wife and myself in. I was careful to seat her on the mail sacks so that her face was toward the stern of the boat, whilst I sat on sacks a little higher looking ahead. In looking up the stream quite a space of clear water was seen. We pulled ont for the other shore (whether to land or eternity none knew) and past many small cakes of ice, but before we reached the middle of the stream which now was a mile or more wide, the boatmen had to head up stream, to avoid the immense cakes of ice coming down, and it was quite a while before they could fine an opening through which the boat could pass toward the opposite shore. At one time it seemed as though we should be crushed between those floating tons of ice, but a way was opened and by the strong arms of our boatmen some of the floating mass was turned one way and some another and our boat passed with many a scrape on her sides. It was a perilous time and if those immense cakes of ice had changed their course only a few inches and come closer together our boat would have been like cockle shell in the hands of a giant. But the strong arms of the rowers and the dexterous use of the boat hook saved us more than once from being sunk in mid-stream. My wife was brave through it all giving never a sound....
We had to row up stream some distance, but at last we came to a large opening of water and the man with the hook cried out, "We have struck it, we are safe." A point of land which projected had piled up the ice as it struck the shore and changed the course of the floating ice and gave us a clear space towards the shore. No time was lost by the boatmen in turning towards the land, and a sigh of relief went up as they for a moment ceased their efforts.
The current carried us down some distance but soon the boat came to land and the ... [truncated due to length]Acquisition
Accession
2014.0026Source or Donor
Ms. Renee WahlenAcquisition Method
Donation
