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[Manuscript journal of a trip from Colorado to California.]

[Manuscript journal of a trip from Colorado to California.] by Castello, Mrs. [Sarah Elizabeth Shockey]

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$1,250.00
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Seller: James Arsenault & Company
Title
[Manuscript journal of a trip from Colorado to California.]
Author
Castello, Mrs. [Sarah Elizabeth Shockey]
Seller
James Arsenault & Company (United States)
Description
July 19–20, 1862; September 12–25, 1862. 24mo (5.625” x 3.5”). 9 pp. in pencil and ink, disbound from larger volume and lacking the pages covering late July and August. CONDITION: Very good. A brief but informative record of a young woman’s journey to California with her mother and new husband during the Civil War, including a striking postscript written forty-four years later. Sarah Elizabeth Shockey was born in Ohio in 1843, and married James H. Castello (1837–1924) in Denver, Colorado in January of 1862. That July the young couple set out for California, along with Sarah’s mother and several others. This diary records Sarah’s experience of the trip, including notable sightings (wildlife, “Indians,” government freight wagons, etc.), rest- and campsites, livestock problems, and toll bridges, but also occasionally outlining domestic camp labor—“Laid by most all day took the things out of the trunk and aired them; put out the beds and bed clothes”—and frequently detailing food, or, at times, a lack thereof: 20 July: “saw 3 antelopes…at little Thompson Gentleman there gave us an antelope ham.” n.d., [July]: “reached Sand spring about 2 oClock in the morning no feed nor wood nor scarc[e]ly any water there did not get any breakfast.” 14 September: “Traveled 3 or 4 miles camped close to Desert station did not get any supper.” 17 September: “bought some fresh beef tomatoes cabbage peaches A lady gave Mother a nice pear.” 24 September: “Stopped at a farm-house and bought some cabbage and tomatoes and grapes lady gave us a few grapes and fresh figs.” 18 September: “A gentleman made us a present of some beautiful fresh grapes…stopped in Steamboat valley at the browns farm…little girl gave us a watermelon cooked our cabbage bought some potatoes and mutton sold our chair for a dollar.” The first day of the journey led Castello and her party from Denver across Dry Creek, Rock Creek, and Coal Creek, ending with a mosquito-filled night encamped at Boulder Creek. Over the course of the ensuing days they camp or “noon” at Cold Spring Road (“great many Indians there”) and Sand spring, in Colorado. When the narrative resumes in early September, the first locations mentioned are “Carson Sink” and “Desert station” in Nevada (both stops on the Pony Express until its closure the previous October). On September 17th they reach Virginia City, and the remaining entries record their passage through “Steamboat valley,” entering the Sierra Nevada Mountains and camping in “Dog valley” (“timber very large”), “the halfway station between Virginia City and Marysville” (where they meet “quite a number of freight teams also a couple of pack trains”), “Truckee lake” (now Donner Lake), “Eureka” (“bought some fresh beef and potatoes put the stock in an inclosure been rich mines there”), and “Nevada” (i.e., Nevada City: “a beautiful place the streets nice and clean so many beautiful flowers in the yards…Mr. Dailey bought a muskmelon”). On September 25th they camp “about a mile from the city of Sacramento.” The Castellos moved to Elk Grove in 1866, where they farmed and James worked as a blacksmith. They had seven children. The final entry in the diary, dated September 25th, 1906 from Elk Grove, reads: “44 years after the above was written, am still able to cook for my family.” An evocative record of a woman’s overland journey from Colorado to California.

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