Kentucky to California by Carriage and a Feather Bed

Francis Sawyer

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Sawyer bought a single-horse carriage for my use and one more mule… My mule and carriage go along so nicely and comforably. She never stops for mud holes. She is the best animal we have, Mr. Sawyer bought her of Dr. Scott, of Cloverport, and she is named for the Doctor’s daughter. Jennie… I sleep in my carriage every night on a feather bed, and am not exposed in any way in bad weather. The boys sleep either in the wagon or in the tent… The men do all the cooking in bad weather, though I never have to do anything but make up the bread.

 

In this way Francis Sawyer faced the rigors of the overland trail to California in 1852. The quotes are all from the first few pages below.

It was on June 13, 1852, that she wrote in her diary, “Sabbath day, and my birthday too — just twenty one.” She and her husband Thomas Sawyer, who was nine years her senior, were from Cloverport, Kentucky, near the northern boundary of that state on the south bank of the Ohio River. Thomas was listed as a “boatman” in the 1850 United States Census of Kentucky, so he undoubtedly worked on the river. There was also listed a baby boy, Henry, who was nine months old. Evidently the child died, for there is no mention of him in Francis’ 1852 diary.

Their neighbors, according to the census, were Tom’s parents, Jonathan and Nancy Sawyer. Jonathan was an English-born farmer. Nancy was a daughter of Kentucky.

One would think that, according to the practice we are used to, our diarist’s first name would have been “Frances,” the feminine version of the name. That is not true, however, for in every reference to her in the diary typescript and in a covering letter given by her daughter, Nancy S. Wills, to the Bancroft Library, it is always written “Francis.”

Tom Sawyer was a young man of the frontier, always on the move. In a concluding note probably added later to her diary, Francis tells that he had already made two journeys to the “Land of Gold.” The first was overland in 1849. He returned to Kentucky in the autumn of 1850. Then she says, “He could not content himself to stay in Kentucky, however, and concluded to go back again. So in the spring of 1851 he, in company with my brother, B. B. Lamar and George Bruner … went out by water, by the way of New Orleans and the Isthmus. He soon got homesick again and came back in the fall of ’51, thinking that he would either settle here in Kentucky, or move with his wife to California. He chose the latter course, hence our overland trip in 1852.”

Now look again at the census information given above. Undoubtedly Tom Sawyer, himself, was away when the 1850 census was taken, and baby Henry was, in the censustaker’s language, “9/12” of a year old. This nine months, plus the nine months of Francis’ pregnancy would indicate that they had been married before the time Tom left on his first 1849-1850 journey. So it was that Francis had spent many lonely hours and days since their marriage.

Francis and Thomas spent the next twelve years in California. During that time there were five children born, three girls and two boys. They were Lula, b. 1854; Emma, b. 1856; Charles, b. 1858; John, b. 1859, and Amelie, b. 1861. They are all thus listed in the 1870 United States Census of Kentucky. In 1864 they took their long trek to their “Old Kentucky Home.” One child, Nannie, was born that year. Where the birth took place we don’t know, whether in California, on the way east, or in Kentucky after the return to Cloverport. In later years this would be the Nancy Wills who donated the typewritten copy of the diary to the Bancroft Library in 1937. The 1870 census lists two more daughters born to the family in Kentucky: Mary, b. 1867, and Susan, b. 1869. In the 1870 census the father, Thomas, is identified as a “Painter.”

We wish to thank the Bancroft Library of the University of California in Berkeley for permission to publish this important record of overland travel. We are also grateful to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, and especially to Librarian Anne McDonnell, for sharing with us information about the family’s Kentucky years.