The first day of the Wilsons journey to California was without incident. Beneath an Oak Tree Mrs. i n t e r a c t i v e s t u d e n t n o t e b o o k Teachers' Curriculum Institute Life in the West 1 Listen to the song "Sweet Betsy from Pike." Guests were charged $17.50 a week for a clean room, laundry services, and savory meals. Luzena Wilson died at age 83 of thyroid cancer on July 11, 1902, at the Hotel Pleasanton in San Francisco. It took twelve days to make it to the bustling mining camp. Gold fever spread in the American West during 1849. Luzena quickly went to work unpacking, making beds, and firing up her stove. Well-respected judges, such as Murray Morrison and Justice Serranus Clinton Hastings of the California Supreme Court, were frequent guests at the establishment. Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Wilson's account also gives us a sense of the urgency people had to mine gold . So, I bought two boards from a precious pile belonging to a man who was building the second wooden house in town. The Wilsons packed up and moved to the rough mining camp of Nevada City. Sometimes we went down the mountains, they were so steep we tied great trees behind to keep the wagon from falling over the oxen; and once when the whole surface of the mountain side was smooth, slippery rock, the oxen stiffened and their legs, and the wagon and all literally slid down a quarter of a mile. Luzena Stanley Wilson (c. 1821-1902) was a California Gold Rush entrepreneur. The hotels reputation grew, attracting more and more customers. Luzena recounted her memoirs to her daughter Correnah, in which she describes her journey from the early days in Sacramento, her founding of the "El Dorado" hotel in Nevada City, and her purchase of land in Vaca. Mrs. Wagons moved at a pace of about two miles an hour and the trail was crowded with other 49ers. As a woman, Luzena Wilson would find herself a rarity in the adventure that lay ahead. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was a president with strong moral convictions. The Hardship of Heading West Luzena lived on the family farm until she and Mason wed on December 19, 1844.6, The first day of the Wilsons journey to California was without incident. Title:: Luzena Stanley Wilson, '49er: Memories Recalled Years Later for Her Daughter Correnah Wilson Wright: Author:: Wilson, Luzena Stanley, 1819-1902 Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Mrs. Wilson chronicles pioneering in Vaca Valley and her Hispanic neighbors, closing with comments on Vacaville's gradual anglicization and urbanization. She resided in a hotel, living off real estate transactions. He told her he had removed $16,000 from the mine the day before. Mason Wilson farmed and the family prospered. He was a dynamic reformer in domestic affairs, signing legislation to lower tariffs (taxes on importing and exporting goods) and regulate businesses and banks. At times I have had a larger amount of money in my charge than would furnish capital for a country bank. Luzena did provide capital for Nevada City residents at ten percent interest on loans. I must have carried my honesty in my face, for he looked at me a minute and said, Ill take you, Maam, if you will assure me the money. I promised him it should be paid, if I lived, and we made the money, So, pledged to a new master, Debt, we pressed forward on the road. Under a progressive provision of the 1849 California Constitution, her status as a married woman allowed her the right to own property separate from her husband. In a few short moments they were off on a journey west to California. Not long after that, government surveyors came to officially lay out the town of Benicia in Vaca Valley. We built the fire at night close to the wagon, under which we slept. During their stay in Nevada City the roads had been drastically improved. Upon arrival in Nevada City Luzena saw a sign for the Wamac Hotel and remarked, that her being a woman made her decide to take in boarders as a source of income. The third source is a diary kept by Luzena Wilson detailing the journey to California and then what life was like living in the Gold towns of California. if ( 'querySelector' in document && 'addEventListener' in window ) { Luzena sold the property for $100 to a miner. In 1872 Mason Wilson abruptly abandoned his family and moved to Texas. I bought provisions from a neighboring store, and when my husband came back at night he found, mid the weird light of the pine torches, twenty miners eating at my table. My husband was furious, Luzena recalled in her memoirs. They were scorched by heat, enveloped in dust that reddened their eyes and parched their throats; they were bruised, scratched, and bitten by innumerable insects. Water and food for the livestock was hard to find and the beasts grew bone thin. In six weeks Luzena had made the money to pay back the teamster. He left the house on an errand of ejectment, taking with him a witness, in case he should be killed or be forced to kill the squatters, many of whom knew and feared his reckless and determined purpose, would not have hesitated to dispose of him with a bullet.23, The courts were called upon to intercede and settle the matter; in the interim, the Wilsons moved from Benicia to Vaca Valley. Sex Trade The fire howled and moaned like a giant in an agony of pain, and the buildings crashed and fell as if he were striking them down in his writhings. French girls charged an ounce of gold just to sit next to a customer and a Swiss woman working an organ grinder made $4,000 in a few months. She was thirty years old. The $10 Biscuit Yet in foreign matters, Wilson . After four or five days of easy traveling, the Wilsons pitched their tent along the first outlying range of low foothills. In the rapidly growing city of Sacramento, the Wilsons sold their oxen and bought an interest in a small hotel. Break in the Levee Torrential downpours, swollen rivers, prairie fires, and knee-high snowdrifts impeded their progress and at times exhausted their resources. The apron would not have made a significant difference in the weight of the wagon but it symbolized the need to prioritize in order to survive the passage over the vast terrains. We took possession of a deserted hotel which stood on K Street, Luzena wrote in her memoirs. Mason agreed, and the two decided to go into the hospitality business. COWGIRL inspires the Modern Western Lifestyle, Luzena Stanley Wilson stood in the center of her empty, one-room, log home in Andrew County, Missouri, studying the opened trunk in front of her. With a full table at every meal, they had ten thousand dollars invested in the business within six months. Luzena invested their money in numerous properties in the area. Population: 32 million people (2021) Capital: Accra with 3.4 million inhabitants. Education was very important to. Sex Trade Luzena had went with her husband and brought along their two kids. Our first campfire was lighted in Indian Territory, which spread in one unbroken, unnamed waste from the Missouri River to the border line of California, she shared in her journal. Wilson came overland to California from Missouri with her husband and two small children in 1849. 'Luzena Stanley Wilson, 49er: Memories Recalled for Her Daughter, Correnah Wilson Wright'. The Alta Californialamented, "We must confess our regret at the perfect freedom and unseemly manner in which the abandoned females are permitted to display themselves in our public saloons and streets.". This hotel was tenanted only by rats that galloped madly over the floor and made journeys from room to room through openings they had gnawed in the panels. By 1850, the idea that the extermination of the native population of California was inevitable had been firmly settled in the minds of many white Californians. Name: Republica de Colombia or Republic of Colombia. He grew up on a plantation called Montpelier with 11 younger siblings. Luzena Stanley Hunt was the third of nine children born to a Quaker family living in North Carolina. [2] The family had moved to Andrew County, Missouri by 1843, and in 1844 Luzena married Mason Wilson there.[3]. But even so her husband, your father, became wearied. Rumors circulated during that time suggested that Mason might have been suffering from a mental illness. Luzena enjoyed eighteen months of prosperity before she, Mason, and her sons, along with eight thousand other Nevada City residents, were left homeless and virtually destitute. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Our first campfire was lighted in Indian Territory, which spread in one unbroken, unnamed waste from the Missouri River to the border line of California, she shared in her journal. Here are some interesting Ghana facts which were chosen and researched by kids especially for kids. Like 25,000 other Americans that year,. Luzena Stanley Wilson '49er: Her Memoirs as Taken Down by Her Daughter in 1881 Paperback - October 20, 2014 by Correnah Wilson Wright (Author) 4.2 out of 5 stars 6 ratings She created a sign with scrap wood and charred embers saying Wilsons Hotel and started over again. The family moved toward the coast and settled beneath an oak tree in a little valley called Vaca, named after the property's Californioowner. In the spring of 1849 Luzena and Mason Wilson packed their wagon and drove west from their log cabin on the Missouri frontier with their two young sons. In January 1855, Luzena and Mason welcomed a third son to their family, Mason Jr. Prior to news of the Gold Rush captivating Masons imagination, the plan was to work the multi-acre homestead and pass the farm on to their children and their childrens children. Population: More than 51 million people live in Colombia (2022) Capital : Bogot with 11 million inhabitants is the country's largest city. As a married American woman, Luzena Wilson reminded many miners of home, of their mothers, wives and sisters. However, as they began their travels into the West and encountered the vast deserts reality set in. All of her worldly possessions were tucked inside it: family Bibles, two quilts, one dress, a bonnet, a pair of shoes, and a few pieces of china. Mason was in a hurry to start his search for gold. Solano County historian Sabine Goerke-Shrode called Luzenas book an important historical source illustrating the Gold Rush from a womans perspective.28, On July 11, 1902, Luzena died of thyroid cancer. So, I bought two boards from a precious pile belonging to a man who was building the second wooden house in town. The couple used that money to make a new start for themselves. A man approached her as she cooked supper and offered her five dollars for a biscuit. A miner with a vehicle and horse was on his way to Nevada City and offered to take Luzena, Mason, her boys, a stove, and two sacks of flour with him for $700. Luzenas new business was as successful as her previous one. Luzena Stanley Wilson (c. 1821-1902) was a California Gold Rush entrepreneur. 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