Argonauts of '49: History & Adventures of Massachusetts Emigrant Companies (1849-1850) | Gold Rush Era Exploration & Pioneer Stories for History Buffs & Book Collectors

This is the story of the companies of adventurers who left Massachusetts for California to acquire wealth and assist in building a new state in a distant and, to them, unknown country. It tells of their passage by sea, of their hard experiences off the Horn and in the gloomy Strait of Magellan, of their life on shipboard and the joyous interlude of visits to South American cities for water and provisions. It tells of their passage overland at a time when the buffalo still roamed the plain and hostile Indians hovered about their camps. It tells of their strange experiences after arrival in California and their good and bad fortune at the diggings. I have prepared this story largely from the records left by the Argonauts themselves, from their private letters, their logbooks and the minutes and journals of their companies, none of which have yet been published and most of which are in private possession. I have also consulted the libraries and newspapers of California and every Massachusetts newspaper of importance whose files of 1849 have been preserved. — O. T. Howe.

An appendix, a bibliography, and several illustrations of ships enhance the text.

Octavius Thorndike Howe

(1923), 2023, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, 246 pp.

ISBN: 9780788426414

101-H2641