George W.B. Evans
Mexican Gold Trail
The Journey of a Forty-Niner
$24.95, £16.95 paperback
9780873282222
Available Now
371 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 9 b/w illustrations
October 2006, Available worldwide
October 2006, Available worldwide
On February 20, 1849, twenty nine-year-old attorney George W. B. Evans set out from Defiance, Ohio, determined to make a fortune for his wife and family in the gold rush. He kept a painstaking record of his journey to California on one of the least known of the overland routes, crossing northern Mexico on the wild, little-used trail through Chihuahua and across the deserts of southern Arizona. Along the way, he faced many perils and hardships, including cholera outbreaks, Indian attacks, and long, waterless treks. Evans reached the Agua Fria diggings on the Mariposa Grant in late October that year but failed to strike it rich. Moving on to work as a customs inspector in San Francisco and then as an auctioneer in Sacramento, he became weakened by disease and overwork and died at age thirty one on December 16, 1850.
"Both professional and casual students of the gold rush and the Borderlands will appreciate the opportunity to acquire an affordable copy of this crucial primary source."—New Mexico Historical Review
"This volume [gives Evans's] account of a little-known route to the gold fields [and his] day-by-day entries on the results of actual mining, [shedding] light on bay and river life and the hubbub of early Sacramento."—Pacific Historical Review
"With its unexpected color and the author's literate style...this book is a surprise and a delight ... one has the feeling of being there."—California Folklore Quarterly
"This volume [gives Evans's] account of a little-known route to the gold fields [and his] day-by-day entries on the results of actual mining, [shedding] light on bay and river life and the hubbub of early Sacramento."—Pacific Historical Review
"With its unexpected color and the author's literate style...this book is a surprise and a delight ... one has the feeling of being there."—California Folklore Quarterly
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