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To the Plains in `49 & when you have put my notes through the polishing machine, make some such arrangement & appropriate the proceeds to defraying postage. We are dressed not so much in uniform as with uniformity, the material being adapted to the hard wear, we inevitably give the clothes. There is a great deal of dirty labour, & fatigue to go through but we work for an unusually rich remuneration every man takes his turn in mounting guard & cooking we each have a mule to tend our washing & mending to do & in short go through a Robinson Crusoe kind of life but without the solitude of his exis- tenceF If I am spared to return to society I shall have a great tri- umph over the Ladies who assume that it is impossible for our sex to exist without their aid We shall have made the experiment & if successful great will be the Crowing. If I return I shall be able to afford the luxury of a wife & intend when in good circumstances to indulge in such an elegant appendage. As you learn from Dr Shermans letters his son Wm has been very anxious to accompany the expidition but until lately there seemed little probability that he would be able to raise the neces- sary funds. I have however succeeded in getting Wm. as a substi- tute for a nephew of Mr Chauncy Robbins who cannot leave home John Hudson's letter of October 6, 1849, from Salt Lake City, to which Benjamin referred, was published in the ]ournal. This same letter was included by Samuel M. Smucker in his History of the Mormons with the note, "The following letter from a Mormon to his father in England, gives some additional particulars of the city [Salt Lake], and the journey over- land from New York." This is part of the evidence that John Hudson was a member of the Mormon church by October of 1849. Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 12 (1850):93-94; letter from superintendent, The British Library, Newspaper Library, 9 September 1980 in editor's possession; Samuel M. Smucker, A.M., Life Among the Mormons, or The Religious, Social and Political History of the Mo~rnons, . . . (New York: Hurst and Com- pany, Publishers [1881], pp. 308-10. 6 John Hudson's anticipation for adventure in the gold regions was shared by another 20,000 men, most of whom the New York Tribune estimated would pass through the city on their way to California. The newspaper reported, "we have information that in nearly every county, companies of fives, tens, and upward, are forming. . . . Already, those who are in the line of furnishing outfits are busily engaged, and many articles which are deemed essential for the trip, have risen considerably in value." Early in the year, numer- ous ads appeared asking, "Who is for California?-A company of 50 young men is about being organized to proceed by land route across Mexico to the gold region"; "Overland to California.-The Kit Carson Association . . . Our route, the shortest of all, is through Texas and the valley of Rio Gila"; and "A meeting of the New York Overland Mutual Pro- tective Association for California." These were typical. "California" was the magic word in 1849. New York Tribune, 13,17 January, 3 February, 20 March 1849. 44 |
