American history

The Journey

The departing gold-seekers faced an immediate problem. California was a long way from home. There was no railroad to whisk them west; no river to float them to California. Instead, the journey would be a painful test of endurance.

There were two miserable choices. The sea route around the tip of South America often took more than six months. But the alternative wasn't much better -- a 2,000 mile walk across the barren American outback.

The sea route was favored by gold seekers from the eastern states. Seasickness was rampant; food was full of bugs, or worse-rancid. Water stored for months in a ship's hold was almost impossible to drink.

And then there was the boredom -- months and months at sea with nothing to do, except dream about gold. The wait was intolerable.

To satisfy the growing thirst for speed, a quicker route was soon employed across Panama. It seemed like a logical shortcut. But traversing the rain forests of Central America in the 1840s was an adventure in itself. Malaria and cholera were common. Those who survived to see the Pacific faced another dilemma -- they were stranded. Ships to ferry them up the coast to San Francisco were rare. And so the forty-niners waited for weeks -- or months, in overcrowded, disease-infested coastal towns.

For Americans who lived in the central states, there was another way west -- a well-worn path carved out several years earlier: the Oregon-California Trail. The overland road was much shorter than the sea route, but it wasn't faster. Most had no idea how severe the overland journey would be.

J.S. Holliday, author of "The World Rushed In":

"The people who went to California by the the tens of thousands were greenhorns -- city folks. They didn't have a callus on their hand, had never fired a rifle, had never followed a plow, had never rode a horse, didn't know up from down in terms of the wilderness world, the frontier life. And they weren't interested in it."

All they could think about was gold as they plodded westward alongside covered wagons at two miles per hour -- for up to six months. The first weeks on the trail took the adventurers along the Platte River, past landmarks like Chimney Rock, Courthouse Rock, and Scotts Bluffs.

Military outposts like Ft. Laramie were most important as post offices -- places to send letters to eager families back home -- heartfelt letters of optimism and hope.

Anonymous 49er:

"The reports of the gold regions are as encouraging here as they were back in Massachusetts. Just imagine yourself seeing me return with $10,000 to $100,000."

As they pushed further west, optimism was replaced by fear of the Native American tribes along the Trail. But after the initial contact, fear often turned to friendliness.

JoAnn Levy, author "They Saw the Elephant

"When you read the diaries, you find that the Native Americans were most helpful. They sold food, they sold horses, they helped find lost stock. One account is of a chief who took an orphaned child back to St. Louis when her parents died from cholera."

The real danger of the overland journey wasn't Native Americans -- it was water. That is, the lack of water. The last few hundred miles were especially difficult.

Merrill Mattes, author "The Great Platte River Road"

"Along the Humboldt and Carson Rivers you reach a point where there is no water at all for long stretches and you would die of thirst. Your tongue would blacken and you would drop dead, and there were lots of accounts to that effect. Well, so some smart cookies back in California got wind of this and they came out with their buckets and barrels filled with water and they would sell the water for $1.00 a glass, or whatever -- as much as they could get away with."

The price for water could go as high as $100 per drink. Those without money -- were sometimes left to die. It was a lesson in supply and demand that would be repeated many times over in frontier California.