Recently, in preparation for my upcoming (April 24th) talk at the Milwaukee Genealogical Society, I was doing some research in historic newspapers from old Washington/Ozaukee and Milwaukee counties, including some of Milwaukee’s German language papers. I found many on-topic items and, as luck would have it, the following interesting little announcement on page 2 of the Friday, April 12, 1850, edition of the (Milwaukee) Taglicher Volksfreund. It has nothing to do with my MCGS presentation, but it adds a surprising amount of new or additional information to our previous discussions of the combined 1849 and 1850 expeditions to the California Gold Rush that were organized and led by Clark House neighbor William T. Bonniwell, Sr., so I thought I’d share it with you today.

Off to the Land of Golden Hopes!

(Milwaukee) Taglicher Volksfreund ,Friday, 12 April 1850, page 2

What’s it say? Click to continue reading and get all the details!

More “Fun with Fraktur”!

For those of you that are not yet fluent readers of the Gothic script known as Fraktur, here’s a transcription of the whole thing:

Fort nach dem Lande der goldenen Hoffnungen. — Eine neue Caravane tritt heutte ihre Reise von hier nach Californien an. Sie sind sämmtlich von Washington Co. und beabsichtigen die Reise gänzlich zu Lande über Fort Independence zu machen. Nachfolgend geben wir eine Liste der Namen, under denen wir manchen bekannten finden:

Marc Silvermann, Chs. Bonniwell, Wm. T. Bonniwell jr., Georg Bonniwell, Chs. Hilton, Francis Tweatyman [sic, Twentyman], Thomas Allen, John Allen, Patrick Rudky, Theodor Taylor, James McNamara, E. K. Ferguson, Andrew Blorham [?], Wm. Toneward [?], Valentin Hohn jr., John Allen [illegible, possibly “jr.”]

Translated, the first paragraph reads:

Off to the Land of Golden Hopes. — A new caravan sets out today from here [Milwaukee] for California. They are all from Washington County and intend to make the entire journey overland via Fort Independence. Below, we provide a list of names, among which we recognize many familiar faces:

I find the last sentence interesting, with the editor’s claim that among the list of names of the “caravan” members the readers of the Taglicher Volksfreund will “recognize many familiar faces.” This suggests that the Anglo-American world of Mequon’s pioneering Bonniwell families and their acquaintances had, at least, a certain amount of friendly interaction with the German-Americans of Milwaukee and its adjoining counties. (This is not exactly surprising, but it’s not something that gets much discussion in the older sources.)

Who’s going?

The second paragraph of our article is a list of names, some of which are well known from our previous gold rush investigations, including brothers and Mequon pioneers Charles Bonniwell and George Bonniwell, and their nephew William T. Bonniwell, jr.,

Some of the other names are more complete here than in other sources. For example, the “Francis Tweatyman” listed here is most certainly the “Mr. Twentyman” referred to in George Bonniwell’s manuscript gold rush diary. Other surnames listed here, that were only partly identified in other sources, include Thomas and/or John Allen and Theodore Taylor. And the “Valentin Hohn, jr.” in this list is either the “Mr. Ahn,” “Mr. Hand,” or “Mr. Hahn” mentioned in the other sources or, perhaps, his son.”

And some of these names are completely new to me, including Charles Hilton, Patrick Rudky, James McNamara, E. K. Ferguson and the—possibly mis-spelled—Andrew Blorham and William Toneward.

What’s next?

One of my long term CHH goals is to pick up where we left off and get Alfred T. Bonniwell, and all the other members of the 1849/1850 Bonniwell gold rush expedition, back from California, and on with their lives in Mequon in the 1850s and beyond. In the process, I’d like to review all our previous Bonniwell gold rush posts and collate the various lists of participants’ names. Some of these new and more distinctive names may be helpful in searching old histories and news accounts of the expedition and might help us form a clearer understanding of the experience of our Mequon pioneers during their time traveling to and from, and digging in, the California gold fields.

More Gold Rush Info

If you’d like to catch up on what we know about the Bonniwell Gold Rush expedition, I’ve added a “Gold Rush” category to the “Search CHH by Category/Select Category” menu. Select the category “Gold Rush” from the pull down menu, and you will get a list of Gold Rush related CHH blog posts. Frankly, I’d forgotten just how much I’ve written about our Mequon men and their adventures traveling to, prospecting in, and returning from California. So far, I’ve tagged 18 relevant posts with the new “Gold Rush” category. There a lots of interesting photographs and maps in these posts; be sure to click on, enlarge and enjoy them all.

…and that’s not all!

Don’t forget, this Friday, April 24th, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., I’ll be speaking at the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society monthly meeting at Milwaukee’s Central Public Library Downtown, at 814 West Wisconsin Ave. For all the details see I’m talking about history…at the MCGS. It’s free, open to the public, and I hope I’ll see you there.

[Daguerreotype of miners], date, place, photographer not known, published by Waterbury Companies, Inc., c. 1849-1860. National Museum of American History