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Grit and Gold

The Death Valley Jayhawkers of 1849

Author: Jean Johnson   Series: Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in Nevada History

No other western story is more famous than the Donner Party's ill-fated journey through the Sierra Nevada. But three years later and several hundred miles south, another group faced a similar situation just as perilous. Scrupulously researched and documented, Grit and Gold tells the story of the Death Valley Jayhawkers of 1849.

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Summary

No other western story is more famous than the Donner Party's ill-fated journey through the Sierra Nevada. But three years later and several hundred miles south, another group faced a similar situation just as perilous. Scrupulously researched and documented, Grit and Gold tells the story of the Death Valley Jayhawkers of 1849.

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Description

No other western story is more famous than the Donner Party’s ill-fated journey through the Sierra Nevada. But three years later and several hundred miles south, another group faced a similar situation just as perilous. Scrupulously researched and documented, Grit and Gold tells the story of the Death Valley Jayhawkers of 1849 and the young men who traveled by wagon and foot from Illinois to the California gold rush. The Jayhawkers’ journey took them through the then uncharted and unnamed hottest, driest, lowest spot in the continent—now aptly known as Death Valley.

After leaving Salt Lake City to break a road south to the Pacific coast that would eliminate crossing the snowy Sierra Nevada, the party veered off the Old Spanish Trail in southern Utah to follow a mountaineer’s map portraying a bogus trail that claimed to cut months and hundreds of miles off their route to the gold country. With winter coming, however, they found themselves hopelessly lost in the mountains and dry valleys of southern Nevada and California. Abandoning everything but the shirts on their backs and the few oxen that became their pitiful meals, they turned their dreams of gold into hopes of survival.

Utilizing William Lorton’s 1849 diary of the trek from Illinois to southern Utah, the reminiscences of the Jayhawkers themselves, the keen memory of famed pioneer William Lewis Manly, and the almost daily diary of Sheldon Young, Johnson paints a lively but accurate portrait of guts, grit, and determination.

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Critic Reviews

“Johnson has gone to great lengths in personally going onsite to identify places mentioned in primary sources and the trails the Jayhawkers followed. Photographs and excellent maps enrich the narrative. Today's trail enthusiasts will find the volume a useful source.”

“Jean Johnson draws together a variety of sources of information into a coherent account of the journey. She has also correlated written documents with on-the-ground observations over the route of travel of the young men. In the many years she has been working in this field, she has uncovered a great deal of previously unknown information.” — Judy Palmer, emerita, Stanford University

"Creditably, there are many photos of the mountains, passes, locations, and places where they camped, and the maps are very well done, tracing as best as can be known the routes taken through the desert wilderness. Photographs of many of the Jayhawkers are found in the front of the book, giving a personal look at those who endured so much." — New York Journal of Books

"Death Valley historian Jean Johnson tells their harrowing tale in her new book…" — True West

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About the Author

Jean Johnson is the coauthor of several books, including Escape from Death Valley. She has spent more than forty years researching the early history of Death Valley National Park, and served on the board of directors of the Death Valley ’49ers Inc.

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Product Details

Publisher
University of Nevada Press
Published
30th November 2018
Pages
416
ISBN
9781943859771

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