"All the world appears to be going that way," wrote Daniel Jenks. It was the mid-nineteenth-century craze and scramble for gold that pulled many to California. Countless amateur treasure seekers making the treacherous trek there from all corners of the globe. Jenks was one of these, pulled by the gravity of gold from a peaceful and prosperous Pawtucket Rhode Island life.
Yet the true treasure of Jenks' travels, toil, trials and triumphs turned out to be the journals that he meticulously wrote and kept along the way, chronicling his Odyssey over oceans and earth in search of wealth and adventure. Daniel's journey begins with a treacherous and tedious eight-month ocean voyage southward, passenger aboard a ship rounding Cape Horn on its harrowing horseshoe course toward California.
There, Jenks finds he's traded shoals and other sea hazards for the land-shark-infested tent villages of gold-rush San Francisco. "Imagine a town built of cloth," writes Jenks. In this "sink of iniquity," he continues, "murders, robberies and thefts are everyday affairs. Bowie knives, revolvers and pistols of all kinds are part of a man's daily apparel. Men die in their tents unknown and uncared for, friendless and alone. This is truly a perfect Sodom."
The Jenks Journals are an epic poem of the pioneer spirit, steeped in all its hope and triumph, hubris and folly. A cautionary and celebratory tale of the restless traveler and the American push westward. A literary treasure, buried in the archives for over 150 years. Join Daniel Jenks as he details and documents his experiences during this extraordinary chapter in American history, a tale delivered to us in the Argonaut's own words, rich in the color and singular culture of these gold-rush boomtowns.
- Includes both California & Colorado gold rushes
- Original journals sold in 2012 for $185,000
- Never before published
- Easy reading format
Go West, young man! With Daniel Jenks.
