Notes of a voyage to California via Cape Horn

By Samuel Curtis Upham

Subjects: Gold discoveries, Voyages to the Pacific coast, History, Law, Law and politics, Business, Associated Pioneers of the Territorial Days of California, Ethnic groups, Zamorano 80, Commerce

Description: Samuel Curtis Upham (1819-1885) was a clerk in a Philadelphia merchant house when he decided to try his luck in California in January, 1849. Sailing round the Horn, he visited Rio de Janeiro and Talcahuana before landing in San Francisco. After a brief career as a gold miner at the Calaveras diggings, Upham moved to Sacramento, where he published the Sacramento Transcript, May-August 1850. Notes of a voyage to California (1878) includes Upham's memoirs of his early years in California, with special attention to Sacramento's colorful history in 1850. He closes his narrative with a brief description of his return to Philadelphia that same year via Panama. The book's lengthy appendix contains chapters on California journalism, the California exhibition at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, and various reunion dinners and other events sponsored by the California "Pioneers" association.