Contemporary accounts of California just before the American occupation are of varying value.  One of the most widely read books is R.H.  Dana’s Two Years before the Mast (1840).  The author spent parts of 1835 and 1836 in California. The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie (1831) is an account of six years’ travel amid almost incredible hardships from St. Louis to the Pacific and back through Mexico.  W.H.  Thomes’s On Land and Sea, or California in the Years 1843, ’44, and ’45 (1892) gives vivid pictures of old Mexican days.  Two other books may be mentioned which furnish information of some value:  Alfred Robinson, Life in California (1846) and Walter Colton, Three Years in California (1850).

Personal journals and narratives of the Forty-niners are numerous, but they must be used with caution.  Their accuracy is frequently open to question.  Among the more valuable may be mentioned Delano’s Life on the Plains and among the Diggings (1854); W.G.  Johnston’s Experience of a Forty-niner (1849); T.T.  Johnson’s Sights in the Gold Region and Scenes by the Way (1849); J.T.  Brooks’s Four Months among the Gold-Finders (1849); E.G.  Buffum’s Six Months in the Gold Mines (1850)—­the author was a member of the “Stevenson Regiment”; James Delevan’s Notes on California and the Placers:  How to get there and what to do afterwards (1850); and W.R.  Ryan’s Personal Adventures in Upper and Lower California, in 1848-9 (1850).

Others who were not gold-seekers have left their impression of California in transition, such as Bayard Taylor in his Eldorado, 2 vols. (1850), and J.W.  Harlan in his California ’46 to ’88 (1888).  The latter was a member of Fremont’s battalion.  The horrors of the overland journey are told by Delano in the book already mentioned and by W.L.  Manly, Death Valley in ’49 (1894).

The evolution of law and government in primitive mining communities is described in C.H.  Shinn’s Mining Camps.  A Study in American Frontier Government (1885).  The duties of the border police are set forth with thrilling details by Horace Bell, Reminiscences of a Ranger or Early Times in Southern California (1881).  An authoritative work on the Mormons is W.A.  Linn’s Story of the Mormons (1902).

For further bibliographical references the reader is referred to the articles on California, San Francisco, The Mormons, and Fremont, in The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

INDEX

   Alvarado, Governor of California, 15-16, 18, 23
   “Arcadian Age,” 58-62
   Ashe, Richard, 251, 252

   Baker, Edward, Colonel, 236, 244
   “Bear Flag Revolution,” 32-36
   Benton, T.H., father-in-law to Fremont, 29;
     exerts influence in Fremont’s behalf, 40
   Bluxome, Isaac, 202, 204
   Bovee, 253
   Bowie, 251, 252
   Brannan, Sam, 56-57, 155, 189