UPDATED, May 28, 2023 with additional information about Panama (City) and Postal Museum hours. I’m still organizing a final roundup of what we know about the Bonniwell gold rush expeditions and when everyone returned to Wisconsin. Until that’s ready, here are three random bits of history that might interest you. All are closely tied to … Continue reading Random bits of Gold Rush history
Continuing our look at old and new evidence about the Bonniwell family’s trip west to the gold fields of California. If you’re keeping track, this is also part 9 of our series documenting the life of Clark family neighbor (and in-law) Alfred T. Bonniwell and his family. We closed our previous post, Gold! – The … Continue reading A (new) Bonniwell Gold Rush timeline
I love a great map, and today’s example is particularly fine in several respects: as a detailed view of our hemisphere at a particularly dynamic moment in U.S. history, as an excellent example of mid-19th-century cartography, and—as we’ll see in our next post—as a clear illustration of how members of Mequon’s Bonniwell family made their … Continue reading Monday: Map Day! – To the gold fields, 1849 & ’50
UPDATED, May 27, 2022 with a few minor edits for clarity. Today, in part 8 of our series documenting the life of Clark family neighbor (and in-law) Alfred T. Bonniwell and his large extended family, we begin a fresh look at some documentary evidence that complicates and enriches our understanding of how the national “Gold … Continue reading Gold! – The Bonniwells go west…but when? and who?
If you’re just joining us, you may want to read the first three parts of this series: (part 1), (part 2), and especially (part 3) before continuing with today’s Part 4. April, 1851: Alfred T. and (George? or Charles?) Bonniwell to NYC Based on the documents that I have been able to locate so far, the next … Continue reading Farewell to California! The Bonniwell party returns (part 4)
UPDATED, May 13, 2023, with a few minor text edits and additions for clarity. If you’re just joining us, you might want to read the first two parts of this series: Farewell to California! The Bonniwell party returns (part 1) and Farewell to California! The Bonniwell party returns (part 2), before continuing with today’s Part 3. Since … Continue reading Farewell to California! The Bonniwell party returns (part 3)
I’ve never been to California’s gold rush country, so I don’t know how accurate this unknown artist’s View of Sutter’s Mill & Culloma Valley. On the South Fork of the American Line, Alta, California might have been.1 It’s drawn in the Romantic style of the time, although it’s clear the unspoiled, natural, “sublime,” view of … Continue reading Farewell to California! The Bonniwell party returns (part 1)
In the 1800s there were no corrugated cardboard boxes or padded shipping envelopes. If you needed to store or ship any liquid—and most dry goods—the barrel (and its larger and smaller cousins) was almost always your container of choice. Anderson, Alexander, engraver. Five Men on a Flatboat With Barrels and Sacks; One Man Operates the Keel … Continue reading The Cooper
Recently, we took a closer look at the 1850 census for old Washington county1 and noticed that six men from the neighboring Bonniwell families—men that we know from other records were actually half a continent away, prospecting for gold in California—were officially enumerated as members of their Wisconsin families in census schedules for Mequon and … Continue reading 1850 census: more neighbors “in Wisconsin”– while prospecting in California
Today we have a surprise addition to our survey of Alfred T. Bonniwell documents. It’s a recent discovery, a very cool 1849 petition to Congress asking for a new postal road from Grafton to Waukesha, via Mequon. It’s signed by many of old Washington county’s most civic-minded men, including Grafton postmaster P.M. Johnson, Jonathan M. … Continue reading JMC & the neighbors petition Congress, 1849
Clark House Historian 