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MEMOIRS OF MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER,
ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

Preparing for another attempt to cross the Sierras. Eleanor says she enjoyed the frontier life. She did not entirely trust Uncle Sam’s soldiers. The men bring graybacks from the soldiers’ camp.They arrive in Placerville, California, then continue on to Sacramento.

MRS. THORNTON was a woman of refinement and wanted to go back to her people in New York so the Vigilance Committee sent her and her son back there. The boy was only seventeen years old. His mother died soon after reaching New York. It was better so, for whenever her mind clouded she raved over the terrible deeds her husband had committed.

With the hanging of THORNTON and EDWARDS and with ADAMS banished from the territory the vigilance felt that they had pretty well broken the gang up. They still had to get the two men who had traded with me at Lawson’s Meadows and afterward we had caught with our cattle. They were LUTE OLDS and JIM LILLY. Lilly was caught stealing after Nevada became a state and put in the states prison there. Well, I do not want you to think that I am an egotist when I tell you that I was the only woman the Vigilance took into their confidence. Before I go on with the rest of my story I want to tell you what became of BILL THORNTON. [Note by Bonnie Stevens: The typescript copy says “Bill Thornton”, but we already know that Bill was the father who was executed. Three paragraphs above Eleanor calls the son “Jerome Thornton”. That is likely the person she is referring to here.]

Not long after his mother’s death he came back to Nevada and became a gambler. At her parents home he met a MISS MELICE TRUE. She was a nice and pretty girl. She often stayed with me and helped me with the children. Thornton fell in love with her and per parents objected to her marrying him. They sent her to California to a boarding school and as soon as she was of age he came to the school and stole her away and married her. I do not know what became of them after that. Her parents came to California to live.

It is now late in the fall of 1858 and we are going to gather our cattle and make another attempt to cross the Sierras. WILLIAM BOYD is going with us again and if we are successful in getting ourselves and our cattle across and into California, my trip across the plains will be finished. I will not be sorry although I must say that I have enjoyed the frontier life and have always enjoyed traveling.

One of my trips with my father I enjoyed very much was through southwest Missouri leaving St. Louis and going as far as the Indian nation in Arkansas. Father got me a nice Indian pony. Those days we traveled horseback as we had no railroads, but that was better than ox wagons which is the way we are going across the Sierra Nevadas. The men say we will not have any trouble getting over this time and the thieves will not be anxious to follow us. The old fort was being abandoned and the soldiers were going across when we were.

The fact that we were going across with soldiers did not entirely reassure me, however, because of a previous business transaction I had with CAPT. ROGERS early in the spring of 1858. He was going over the mountains with one of the government teams. Before leaving he visited all the women in the trains and said he thought that we might have butter and eggs that we would like for him to sell in PLACERVILLE. So we all gathered up what we could well spare and let him have them. I had with the help of the men made seventy five pounds of butter and it was selling at a dollar a pound. My husband did not want me to bother to make it but I thought it would be nice to write home and tell them how much better I had made and how much it brought me. Well, we all waited patiently for butter and egg money but Cap. ROGERS was never seen or heard of after that, and I personally did not entirely trust Uncle Sam’s soldiers.

Well, we got along fine with them with one exception. Our men would go to the soldiers’ camp in the evenings and have a good time talking. I told them they had better stay away from there for they would in all probability get into something they would not like. They paid no attention to me and kept on going. One morning just before we got to California they began to complain that something was biting them so that they could not sleep nights. I said, “You have graybacks and need not come to my camp.” [Note:Lice] They changed their clothes but that did no good. As soon as we could we made them burn their clothes and blankets. They said after they were rid of them that they would rather have encountered thieves or Indians.

We are now in PLACERVILLE CO., CALIFORNIA. We traveled through some beautifully scenery on the way, snow clad mountains, lofty pines with black and silver gray squirrels on their boughs. When we reached the top of the Sierra pass we were surprised to see a beautiful lake of crystal clear water. You could see the pebbles on the bottom and numerous trout which were delicious eating. I am sorry I cannot give the dimensions of the lake, but the man who discovered it first was named Bigler and the lake was named BIGLER LAKE after him. We emigrants who had crossed the Sierras before there ever was a grade thought that it was right to name this lake for Bigler but we thought such men as HORACE GREELEY, HENRY WARD BEECHER, GRANT and others had no right to go to the places and resorts which the emigrants had named and change the names to their own names. Why, they even changed the names of the Big Trees and named them after themselves. Well, they did not change the name of Steamboat Springs which is a great freak of nature.

HANK MONK had to do some of his best staging to get GREELEY into Placerville at a certain time, and Hank was just the man to take them over those grades. I have ridden over them and really one would think every moment would be the last. The last of the sharp turns and steep grades was enough to make Greeley ask Hank to halt, but once you start down one of those grades you have no chance to stop and anyway Hank was determined to get Greeley through to Placerville on time.

In the year 1861, I used to drive down VANSICKLES GRADE and into Carson Valley with a two-horse team, a fine span of roans, and a good break on my carriage, and I was well used to driving as my husband was a cripple. The other two grades were OGLESBYS and KINGSBURY’S and I enjoyed driving over them.

I will now finish about my trip to El Dorado County. Placerville was nothing but a mining town with prospect holes, mining ditches and flumes, showing some civilization, otherwise the country presented a sterile appearance. We hastened on to SACRAMENTO CITY which is quite a town and there we crossed the SACRAMENTO RIVER into YOLO COUNTY. Twelve miles further we came to a beautiful valley with plenty of grass and wild oats for our cattle and plenty of slough water. We pitched our tent near a well someone had dug there and did fine.

The men immediately built a small three-room board house for me, and I lived there for six weeks, seeing no one but my husband, my brother, and the hired men. The men left early in the morning to look after the cattle and seldom came home to lunch, and it was night when they finally got in. I had no company but my two little girls but I did not mind so much.

I could stand in my yard and see our cattle and hundreds belonging to others grazing. Really, it was a pleasure to see forty or fifty little calves lying on the grass with their mothers eating near and to know that they belonged to me.

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