Martha of California: A Story of the California Trail

That evening we spent visiting; those people, like ourselves, were traveling toward the land of California, and only those who have been journeying in the desert and through the wilderness, without meeting any human beings save Indians, can understand how intent was the pleasure we experienced in being with our own kind again.

The emigrants decided to join our train, and we were right glad to have them with us, although their store of provisions was no greater than ours; but all were put on what father called "short allowance," which was to each person two slices of bacon and two pieces of bread during one entire day. All our men who had guns were continually searching for game; but while we could see antelope and even wild fowl, both beasts and birds were so shy that the best hunters among us could not get within gunshot.

IN THE LAND OF PLENTY

And so we traveled on, hungry, thirsty, and weary, despairing now and then of ever coming again into a land of plenty, until we arrived at the Truckee River, which was more beautiful to my eyes than ever had been the broad Mississippi.

The waters of the river were clear as crystal and very cool, while from it our people took within an hour a sufficient number of trout to satisfy the hunger of all. It seemed necessary we should eat until it was absolutely impossible to swallow more, in order to atone in some way for the hunger that had pressed so sorely upon us during the ten days previous.

Eben Jordan said laughingly that we were much like the savages, who were starved one day and in danger of bursting with food the next.

THE TRUCKEE RIVER

It pleased me right well when father said that we were to remain in camp one full day by the side of this river, in order to give the animals the opportunity of feeding upon the rich grass which grew in abundance on every hand.

At last we had come into California, and a beautiful country indeed it appeared to me while we remained near the river, – all the more beautiful, perhaps, because of the suffering which it had cost us to get there. Both Ellen and I now came to believe our fathers had been wise indeed to leave the banks of the muddy Mississippi for so glorious a river as the Truckee.

All around us were evidences of bountiful nature, for the land was seemingly overcrowded with game, with food on every hand for the cattle, beautiful flowers, and everything which goes to make one happy.

How long the journey had been I did not really know until Eben Jordan came to where Ellen and I were sitting on the grass with the skirts of our gowns filled with flowers. He had in his hands a bit of paper on which he had set down, from what had been told him by the leaders of the company, the distance we people had traveled since leaving Independence. This was no less than two thousand and ninety miles, to which one must add, in order to learn how long was our march, the distance from Pike County to Independence, which would, so Eben said, make a total of about two thousand two hundred.

Even then we were nearly two hundred miles from San Francisco; however it was not the intention of our fathers to journey so far across California, for we had not come expecting to find gold, but to make for ourselves farms, where we could live comfortably by honest industry.

Already I am writing as if we had come to an end of our journey, and so it seemed to me while we remained in camp on the bank of the Truckee River; but there were yet many days of toil before we arrived at the place where our people had decided to buy land.

It was yet necessary that we cross the Sierra Nevada, where we found a seemingly impassable trail over the mountains, yet we knew that people like ourselves, traveling in the same way, had gone before us, and all the dangers and the difficulties seemed lessened because of the fact that we had come so near to where we intended to make our new homes.

A HOME IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY

After much labor in descending the Sierras, we came upon the first settler's house we had seen since starting out. It stood in the valley of the Sacramento, on what is called Bear Creek, and was owned by Mr. Johnson, who himself was a Piker.

To me the house was odd looking, not because of being so small as to have only two rooms, but because it was built half of logs and half of adobes, or bricks of mud which have been dried in the sun. It was a rough building, and yet how homelike it appeared!

Unfortunately Mr. Johnson and his family were not at home. The building was closed, and although the door was not really locked, it had been fastened with strips of rawhide in such a manner as to show that the owner wished to keep out stragglers.

As we journeyed leisurely and comfortably down the valley of the Sacramento, we saw now and then large droves of wild horses and elks feeding peacefully on the plains, and there was never a night when Eben Jordan, or some other of the hunters, did not bring in an abundance of game.

THE MISSION OF SAN JOSÉ

Then came that day when we arrived at the little village which is called the Mission of San José, and although everything about us was strange, we said to ourselves that at last we had come to our new home, for it was near that place our fathers intended to buy land.

The village of San José must at one time have had many hundred inhabitants; but when we arrived it was little better than a ruin. The houses, built of sun-dried bricks, were without roofs and crumbling slowly away, all of which appeared the more pitiful because of the well-kept church and the fortlike two-story house where lived the priests. Both buildings were in such good repair that they afforded a striking contrast to the tumble-down dwellings which could be seen near at hand.

I would love to tell how father built for himself a house on land which he bought from the priests of the Mission, and how mother and I set about making a home which should be somewhat the same in appearance as the one we had left in Pike County, but it is not for me to do so.

OUR HOME IN CALIFORNIA

It may be that at some time when our home here is fully made as we would have it, I can tell you how we live, what odd Spanish dishes we have on the table, how great a profusion of fruit is at our hand for the gathering, and very many other things which to me are most interesting.

I have learned to love this land even more than I did Pike County, which at one time I believed the most beautiful spot on earth, and although it pleases me now and then, when settlers come over the long trail, to hear the younger members of the company singing "My name it is Joe Bowers," I have almost forgotten that Missouri was once my home.

I have come to look upon myself as belonging to this beautiful valley where Nature is so lavish with all her gifts, and therefore, instead of calling myself a Piker, as in the days gone by, I dearly love to write so all may see, that I am now, and ever shall be as long as the good God allows me to remain in this world, Martha of California.