2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog. I like statistics and this is pretty interesting. In 2012 I will have some really interesting posts from a Civil War diary… it is written in a style that is like being along for three and a half years and seeing the war through a soldier’s eyes. Two of my relatives, brothers Solomon and Jeremiah App, were members of this company and many stories of them are included. I hope all of you have a very Happy New Year, and continue to read these blog posts!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 40 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

John App – After the Gold Rush Diary, Part 4 of 4 (and final post)

John had a successful marriage and career in the Jamestown area. He and Leanna settled near Jamestown, where he built a ten-room ranch house out of native sugar pine from the Algerine mill. The couple had four children. In John’s 1870 journal he writes that “the App Mine was located by John App, R.A. Jones, H. Roberts, H. Wright, B.W. Wilder [husband of one of the other Donner daughters], and J.D. Brown on August 13, 1856 and his interest was sold on April 1st, 1869 for the sum of forty thousand dollars.” Within a decade the main shaft reached a depth of 130 feet. It eventually extended to 1,340 feet below the surface. Two five horsepower engines were placed inside a chamber hewn from solid rock within a 450 foot tunnel and were used to hoist ore from the main shaft. In later years John ran the accompanying mill, while Asa K. Darrow operated the mine. The App Mine proved to be one of the most productive gold mines in Tuolumne County, operating continuously from 1856-1920. During its first ten years it produced $1,000,000 in gold. John also was the owner and superintendent of the Heslep Mine. The family ranch is situated about one mile from Jamestown, and John and Leanna are buried in a cemetery just a short distance from it.

Descending the App Mine

Miner in App Mine

Ranch with John & Leanna

Leanna Donner App

John App – After the Gold Rush Diary, Part 3 of 4

Following is a more “colorful” rendition of the journey on the Walker River Trail:

History of Kennedy Meadows
Sonora Pass, California Sierra Nevada

The history of Kennedy Meadows begins with the first crossing of Sonora Pass by the Clark-Skidmore party of 1852. They had begun their journey from Elizabethtown Ohio in the fall of 1851 to join the many other thousands bound for California’s gold. The party included Fifty-four men, women, and children, determined to overcome whatever nature or man could do to stop them…..

2 P.M. June 2, 1852
The trip down the Walker river from Reno had been deceptively easy. Had they known then what they knew now they would never have followed General Morehead. After turning west again (at what is now the junction of Hwys 108 and 395) they had come to a beautiful, peaceful valley. However the terrain had become steep and difficult after that. Snow capped peaks surrounded them now and the climb had been treacherous. They were finally approaching what appeared to be the summit. As they crested the top of the rise the site that lay before them was disheartening. On the right and left where snow capped peaks. Straight ahead a boulder strewn gorge and a sheer cliff with a two hundred foot drop. The only way out was straight down. The situation had now become desperate. They were running low on supplies with only three days of food left before they would have to start killing their livestock. Thoughts of the Donner party and their ill fated traverse of the Sierras six years previously were on their minds. Martinas Skidmore turned and pointed to General Morehead, his finger shaking with anger as he said: “You, sir have gotten us into this, and you sir, will get us out of it! You have jeopardized the lives of our families and livestock and we are now on the precipice. If we are to starve, you will not have that luxury, you will be hanging by this rope!” He began to pull a rope from his saddlebag. The anger seething from him was seized upon by the other members of the party, the cry to “Hang him now!” was heard echoing back down through the other members of the group.

This was not what Morehead had envisioned when he had heard of Sonora Pass the previous year. He had been told (from what he knew now to be less than reliable sources) that the pass itself was difficult but that after traversing the pass it would be a relatively easy trip. He had not however, made the trip himself but had relied on the word of another. If he had it to do over he would not have brought so many, with so much to lose. The predicament they where now in was his making and he would do his best to get them out of it.

Nathan Clark was a man of few words but at 6 foot four inches and the arms of a Blacksmith he was listened to when he did talk. His deep booming voice echoed off the rock walls as he spoke “Stop, I say. Hanging General Morehead will not get us over this pass. The predicament we are now in is no more and no less than what we’ve endured for the past two months. Cooler heads are needed. Let General Morehead speak.”
Thankful that the situation had been defused (for the moment at least). And thinking quickly (as he was known to do when under pressure). Morehead spoke. “I will lead a party to Sonora for a relief train and will return in three day’s time. I am a man of my word contrary to what you believe. I was deceived by another as to the difficulty of this traverse.”

Nathan Clark had a lot to lose and a very strong reason to see that this party made it to Sonora. His family was with him and he was going to make sure that Morehead followed through with his promise. If what Morehead said was true then there was reason enough to give him the opportunity to clear his name. Clark had always prided himself in his fairness and objectivity. They were in a situation now where all involved needed to think clearly. He spoke to General Morehead. “General, if what you say is true then you have my word you will not be harmed. Do you believe we can make the journey in three days time and on what do you base this time frame?” General Morehead spoke cautiously, “If we can make Leavitt Meadow in one day’s time then you have my word we will be in Sonora two days later.”

Skidmore and Clark stepped back from the others and spoke quietly for a few minutes. They were the undisputed leaders of this party and what they decided was final. Nathan Clark spoke first. “There will be a relief party sent and General Morehead will lead it.” A hush descended over the party. “Six volunteers are needed to accompany General Morehead. You will prepare to leave immediately.”

High above the emigrants and out of sight two brothers sat silently watching. Brave Bear (known for his sense of humor and his practical jokes) raised his eyebrows as he gave a sideward look to Eagle Feather. “Do the white men really think they can get those wagons over this pass?” Eagle Feather could not help himself as they turned their horses, his laughter echoing off the canyon walls….

John App – After the Gold Rush Diary, Part 2 of 4

The Clark-Skidmore Party was organized of people from Ohio and Indiana. By the time they reached the California/Nevada border they were near where John App was working, and drew his interest when they announced that they were headed to the Sonora area. There was not a proven route to that area from the north although the Bidwell-Bartleson Party made it though in 1841 under very difficult circumstances. The route that was decided upon was the Walker River Route, an untested trail, rather than the Carson River Trail. This party of 75 people and 13 four-mule wagons was the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada via the Walker River-Sonora route and it took the party 35 days to blaze a trail of 60 miles over the rugged pass.

In 1852 concerns about economic slumps and social conflict prompted the businessmen of Columbia, California to dispatch a delegation of men across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to convince emigrants to come to the Southern Mines by a new trail. The small party sent into the mountains located what they hoped would be a feasible route and then encamped on the Carson River, talking to emigrants and telling them of the wonderful new trail that had just opened up to Tuolumne County. Leading the Columbia delegation was Joseph Morehead, a man of questionable credentials.

While most emigrants were suspicious of Morehead’s claims of a shorter and easier trail to the mines, the fifty men of the Clark-Skidmore Party decided to risk the new route. Guided by Morehead, they turned south with their thirteen wagons to follow the Walker River. The early section of the route was much the same as that of the Bidwell Party in 1841, but once they turned into the mountains they were on their own.

 After about a week they reached Leavitt Meadow at the foot of Sonora Pass on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. The emigrants realized they would not make it to Sonora without help, so Morehead and several others set out on horseback to obtain supplies. While they were gone, the other emigrants struggled to bring the wagons as far into the mountains as they could, following a route several miles south of today’s Sonora Pass highway. What the emigrants didn’t know was that Morehead and his party had become lost. When the relief supplies didn’t appear, some of the emigrants began to strike out on foot for the mines. Finally the last group was forced to abandon the wagons and follow the example of their colleagues.

When they reached a valley on the headwaters of the Stanislaus River many were sick and all were hungry. They camped along a small stream at the foot of a peak today known as East Flange Rock. It was there that Morehead and the relief train met them, thus giving the location the name of Relief Camp. Morehead’s group had eventually found their way to Sonora and Columbia, gathered a pack train of supplies, and had returned up the trail.

With the fresh provisions many of the remaining emigrants went back for the wagons and brought them over the mountains without mishap, following a route that became known as the Walker River Trail. The trail crossed the Sierra six miles south of the modern Sonora Pass and then followed the ridges down to today’s Dodge Ridge, Pinecrest and Twain Harte. The weary emigrants were eventually greeted in Columbia with a party in their honor.

Although the press and even the members of the Clark-Skidmore Party praised the new trail, the route would prove to be among the most difficult of the emigrant trails across the Sierra Nevada.

John App – After the Gold Rush Diary, Part 1 of 4

John’s last diary entry was June 23, 1850. He is near present day Elko, Nevada and he seems impatient to get to his destination. So, what IS his destination? That is the part of his journey that needs to be recreated from as many sources and timing of events as possible.

John probably continued journaling in another book that has been lost to the ages. During his life he wrote down even the most uneventful details sometimes at random and in the margins. We do not have his writings for the period between this date and his arrival into the present day Jamestown, California area.

We know that upon his arrival in that area he prospected and staked claim on a quartz-bearing gold mine, called the App Quartz Mine. It was in the area of the southern mines along the Mother Lode. We also know that he married Leanna Donner (the second oldest surviving Donner daughter from the Donner Party) in October of 1852 at Sutter’s Fort in present day Sacramento, California. They homesteaded near Jamestown near a now extinct town called Quartz Mountain, California.

For John to gain knowledge enough to discover and work a hard rock mine would mean he would have had to have had some experience. It appears that John proceeded from his camp on June 23 into an area of California north of San Francisco in both Nevada and Amador Counties. This was a gold mining area and is located on the north western part of the Mother Lode. The Mother Lode was a 120 mile long area rich in gold that ran from northwest to southeast. He seems to have worked the mines in this area from July, 1850 until about June, 1852. Sometime during this period he undoubtedly met Leanna Donner. She had been rescued from the Sierras in the spring of 1847 and had found refuge, along with her sisters, at Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento, California. Sacramento was a supply depot for the gold fields, so the miners frequented this area and probably John App was among them. She also spent some time at Sonoma (with a Swiss couple “Bruner”) and with her oldest sister, Elitha, at her and her first husband’s (Perry McCoon) ranch along the Cosumnes River (he was killed in a horse riding accident in 1850). After that Elitha and Leanna continued to live together. In 1852 they were staying at a hotel in Sacramento.

He is not included in the 1852 California census for some reason… maybe a historian would know what circumstances would cause that. A reasonable explanation is that he was in a remote area and was simply missed, or that he was out of state although there was no compelling reason or time for him to be gone. The presumption is that he was gaining knowledge and experience about mining, and in June of 1852 joined the Clark-Skidmore Party (probably somewhere around Reno, Nevada and near Truckee, California) for the journey to the Sonora, California area (this is in the Jamestown and Quartz Mountain area).

John App’s June 23, 1850, Gold Rush Diary Entry

Sunday June 23, 1850

Stopping Point:

Approximate Miles Traveled:

GPS Latitude:

GPS Longitude:

Elevation:

Notes about this post: This post is the last entry made in John App’s diary. He is near present day Elko, Nevada. Why did he stop writing? Maybe there was no more space in this diary and be began writing in another book that we do not have. Don’t be discouraged, though, because we know he made it to California, led a good life, married Leanna Donner, and discovered a gold mine near present day Jamestown, California. Follow the posts in the next few days to discover how his route to the Jamestown area, and experiences along the way, have been reconstructed (to the best of our ability at this point).

June 23d the Saboth we Traveled Because we had been detained in Crossing the headwaters of marys R, the first Introduction we had to the Elephant was on Raft R, to see men hauling and draging their wagons and mules through the swamps and sloughs about 1/2 mile going it with a long Rope in their shirt tails, I’m about down getting Cold, and nothing to Eat since morning, we Camped and in the moring looked around and found a good place to cross the head without any trouble, so it goes.  Men make them selves sometimes trouble when their is no use in it, rush ahead without looking where they go until they get in so deep that they cannot back out, and sometimes lose a day.

No video this day.

Diary entries 6/1/1850 - 6/23/1850

Diary entry 6/23/1850

In the desert west of the Great Salt Lake heading toward Elko, Nevada

“Our Italian Neighborhood” documentary is now available!

The DVDs of the “Our Italian Neighborhood” (a documentary of Elkhart’s former “Little Italy”) are in stock and shipping now. Beleive me, you will be captivated by the people and the stories!

There are several DVD combinations available to match your level of interest and budget. To watch a sample video and find out where to obtain the documentary, please visit http://www.storiesretold.com/store_italian_neighborhood.htm

Ciao!