Historical Clippings Book (HC-20) (169 pages)

THE SACRAMENTO ou5, DECEMBER 27, 1941 —— By HARRY P. BAGLEY RS. Nellie Keith Niesen of Willows is a pioneer. Not of the gold rush, but none the less a pioneer who knew the hardships, toil and joy of wresting a wheat ranch from the wilderness. Her father, Richard Harris Keith, also was a pioneer. He came to California in °S1 and tried his hand at mining and freighting before he acquired a wife, and pitted his plough, ax and team against a likely looking bit of wilderness near a grove on the confiuence of Willow and Walker Creeks in Colusa County. And after his farm was started, in 1875, Keith and his family discovered their homestead was on railroad land. They were evicted and Richard Keith packed his family and belongings into his wagon and headed north toward Tehama County and finally located near Olympio. Nellie Keith was only 3 when the family made that journey but she and her brether, a year or so older, remembered vividly the various highlights of the trip. They recalled old Levi Welsh, the wizenend postmaster and general storekeeper at Kanawah, who was a wizard with a six gun. The family happened to halt in front -of the store just as Levi stepped out on a rickety front porch to demonstrate for a crony his unerring skill with an old fashioned cap and ball “hawglaig” by shooting mud balls from the tails of little pigs which were rooting around his store. ae ry HE family “took up” another homestead in Tehama County and their crop was pitifully small that year, considering their land was in the heart of a region which for many years produced more than 90 per cent of the world’s wheat. Mrs, Niesen remembers the tremendous flocks of geese which ravaged their fields, cropping the tender green sprouts as thoroughly a5 swine or, even worse, pulling the wheat up, roots and all, when the ground was wet. Goose shooting was not then a gunner’s outing. It was a tedious, expensive task, an act of self deense. . Mrs. _Niesen unquestionably was a pioneer, and her father before her was a pioneer, but her mother’s father, Peter Cook, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was the outstanding pioneer of the entire family. A capable, well trained craftsman, he bullt a log cabin home in the wilds of Illinois, foreswore _——— Mrs, Ellen Cook “eith teacher at Shind'e the security of a weli established farm to join the gold rush, had his fling in with speculative “feet” and mining stocks in Comstock days, aided the Starr brothers and General McCarver to establish Tacoma, Wash., and, when 89 years old, wrote graphic memoirs of fis life. % Mrs, Niesen has the manuscript written by her grandfather and its terse narration, ‘dating far earlier than the gold rush, gives a fine idea of the manner of men who came, to California. Peter Cook was born on February 1st, of 1818 in Monmouth County, N. J. : His father and mother, John and Mary Morris Cook, were descendants of the discoverers and settlers of Manhattan. In fact, Peter Cook, in 1906 A FARMER inthe GOLD Peter Cook and his wife. Peter is the author of interesting memoirs touching upon important phases in the development of the nation. was lawing for land on which Trinity Church, New York City, PdPR TES was a echool now stands, contending it should revert to his family because a lease for 99 years, granted by his relatives, had expired. Peter’s father moved from Tinton Falls, N. J., to Philadelphia in 1822 and Peter remembered well the time when he was 6, and Lafayette made his last visit in America. “I think it was in 1824,” he wrote in his memoirs. “He (Lafayette) made his first call upon Joseph Bonaparte, then living in his splendid home park on the Delaware River near Trenton.” The corporation of Philadelphia ‘ honored its distinguished guest. It furnished all the school chil. dren with cockades and epaulets and Peter Cook was one of the children who marched in the parade in honor of Lafayette. rs To family moved back to Tinton Falls a few years later and John Cook acquired an extensive orchard. As his boys grew up, he bound them out to learn a trade, and Peter thus pacing an expert carriage maker—a ane ie used vag advantage later agecoar fori g builder in Call eter quarreled with his fath when he was approaching sean hoad, end ran away to New York, intending to co to sea. A friend or ee family persuaded him to While lingering in 0 trying to decide which eee take, he often visited the wharves, and he trod the decks 5 a Walton's Claremont wae PRA at historic craft e& saw New Jersey’, = toed from Amboy to noah Fall: See phores which were the fast communications hetween New York and Washington before Morse's telegraph was invented. “We signaled poles from New York by way of Sandy Hook on to the clty of Washington, with stations every fifteen or twenty miles apart, with character blocks,” he wrote. The news of the day relayed by visual means along this line of poles, with various combinations of the character blocks spelling out the messa 2és, * Petty vetused-tuTinton Falls and soon after the Blackhawk War, his father’s agents, returning from a land hunting expedition, reported an ideal area about fifty miles west of Chicago. Squatters on the Jand were willing to relinquish their claim, for a consideration, and Peter was selected to close the deal, and hold the land until a government survey could be completed. Peter’s westward trip was his honeymoon. ee HE newlyweds traveled by boat to Chicago, by way of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, and at Milwaukee and Waukegan their boat put ashore the German colonists who founded those cities. Five miles beyond a “start up” town called Bristol, a teamster unloaded Peter, his bride and their belongings and left them sitting on a log, wondering what to do next. “Night came on and we lay down in a corner like two babes in the woods,” wrote Peter, “I was almost dead of homesickness. My brave Wife said ‘Peter, do not be discouraged. If others can make a home in this wilderness, you and I can. The hardships, experiences, and obstacles overcome by Peter and Mary Cook is a story in itself. Sufficient to say that when the old rush started, the Cooks had broad, well cultivated acres, a comfortable home, substantial savings, and three children. ° 4 ETER COOK with his neighbors Peter Johnson, Edward smith and David Ferris left Bristol, II. in March of 1850. The season Was unusually cold and at Council Bluffs the travelers found 10,000 emigrants sly awaiting weather chested permit travel. Most Me the emigrants were Mormons, 2 xlous to Start for Salt Lake ity. eee shot buffalo, met various Indians of Various tribes and encountered all the regulation perils ¢ the plains. Once he and his companions . frantically kindled back fires '© Save themselves when Pawnee tribesmen, avenging an insult, fired the prairie grass. “pTney Went ahead of us and fired the @Y grass in a low flat of twenty Miles wide,” wrote Peter, “They Waited until we got in the middle and fired it and the fire came down on us frightfully, We were hemmed in. There was no Wa¥ Of escaping but runour 18ms and keep ahead and they !2¢d ahead, Well, we tame to 2 *™Mall creek, We halted the train. @ carried water {in pails and “Pt down the leeward side, then backfired and wiped out the fireewrhe country for a day's travel Right—The shooting of wild geese was an act of self defense, among small grain farmers when Nellie Keith (Mrs. Nellie Keith Niesen) was a child on a Tehama County wheat ranch. The geese cropped off tender young grain and, in wet weather, pulled it up by the roots. Left—Mrs. Nellie Keith Niesen of Willows, at work on a biographical account of her parents’ lives, which she is preparing for her children and grandchildren. Buffaloes, deer, antelopes and wolves, for a whole day, dead and dying.” A wagon broke down in the Sioux country and eight Indians rode up to visit the emigrants. Their chief was Red Cloud, a brother of Sitting Bull‘of Custer fame. “The chief,” related Cook, “had a tomahawk hanging by his side, not sharp. I took it from him and filed it sharp.’ Then he gave the Indian an extra file he had, a present which paid dividends in '61 when, while he was again crossing the plains, Red Cloud recognized him as a friend and averted an Indian attack. “Jim Bridger saw us camp a mile from the fort,” wrote Cook, “and he sent a messenger out for us to drive up to the fort. He was an interesting mountaineer and was as king of all the mountain tribes; many squaw wives and children, He claimed to be a cousin vf John Tyler; had 2 polished education and chose a life of hunting and trapping.” Near the City of Rocks in Idaho, a jumbled mass of imposing boulders which closely resembles a_ sizable town, Peter Cook and his friends averted the theft of a valuable thoroughbred _ stallion belonging to one of the party. A white man who headed a band of Bannack Indians coveted the animal. The attempt at the City of Rocks was thwarted, but at Gravelley Ford, on the Humboldt River, the horse disappeared. “That white man. had followed us 200 miles to steal that horse,” Cook related. “And he rode him to Oregon to the Umatilla reservation and from that horse was bred the finest stock in the State of Oregon. I* traced this out years later most correctly.” Cook's party ran out of provisions on the Humboldt and commandeered grub at pistol’s point from a surly Missourian who would not part with a pound of food from his ample stores. But Cook and his companions drew their weapons, helped themselves to a sack of flour and a side of bacon, tossed a $10 gold piece toward their victim and continued on their way. . The party traveled at night to MAGAZINE SECTION—PAGE THREE and over the Sierra. avoid marauding Paiutes made their way . OOK’S account. of Independence Day at Mud Springs is a highlight in his narrative. “Down again,” he wrote. “The following day (July 3rd) brought us to Mud Springs in the midst of excitement; first sight of gold mining; we were met by miners with a hearty greeting; we unsaddled our horses, let them have their liberty; we dropped down under the shade of pines to take a rest and sleep in safety from danger, the red hot sun still shining. I awoke by the sun burning me late next morning, the 4th of July, 1850. “I took a view of my surroundings; below was the only log cabin in sight. I saw a woman come out and go in, very businesslike. I. soon discovered she was keeping then what might be called an accommodation house. I got out my mirror, took a look at myself. I did not much resemble Peter Cook; browned with alkali dust, long beard. I took a shave, I washed the dust off. I changed my suit. I hadn’t looked on it since dear wife had packed it away for me in my far home, Well, now the other boys awoke out of their long sleep. Looking at me in my change they could hardly recognize me. ‘Well, boys, this is the Fourth of July and I am for a square meal!’ I said. I started down to see what the woman was like and take in the surroundings. When I saw her she was gathering wood and water. I came near her but she did not offer any room for me to make her acquaintance. She was all ready for self protection, a large navy revolver hung by her side and she cast at me a look with h don’t come too near in it. I am a judge of human nature. She was \alone and as mad as a setting hen. I went around to the woodpile and picked up an ax; cut up some wood. I kept an eye on her. She looked dangerous. I carried in some wood, took the pails, brought water from the spring, carried it in and set the pails down. I was about to leave. No word was spoken by either. She turned around, ‘Who in hell are you?’ I was quick to answer and give an account of myself. “Who sent you here?’ “Nobody. I saw you were in need of some help.’ “*Yes, I’m alone and this is the Fourth of July and the miners will be here for dinner, Will you help me through?’ “With pleasure, madam,’ ‘Well, this was a godsend for me. Now, will you take a drink, . oe A scene, which might have inspired Alonzo Delano’s illustration of The Green Devil Saloon, was enacted at Mud Springs on Independence Day, 1850, when Peter Cook helped an unnamed and I want you to tend bar and entertain the customers, Whisky, 75 cents a glass, dinner, $1.00.’ “"T sent Thomas, my man, to Sacramento for supplies. The old —has got drunk and spent my ~ money. Who are those men up there?’ “My partners.’ “Call them to have dinner with us.’ “The miners came from all dlrections; a big day. We took in many hundreds of dollars. No change, currency, all dust. A big drunk and nobody killed. We all had a good time. When it Was all ayer she gave me $8 and an invitefon to her house at any time. I have never seen her since, but kept on hearing of her being very rich. She was once well known at St. Louis, Mo. “I mined there a few days and went to Sacramento.” ‘ cee Cok must have lingered longer near Mud Springs than his memoirs indicate, for he fixes the date of the Squatters Riot in Sacramento as July 15th, rather than August 15th. His description follows: “Arrived in Sacramento, on the 15th of July, right in the midst of the squatters’ fight. A hot time jumping lots. Many got sore heads, clubs used freely. The sheriff was shot and killed. We called an election directly and elected another. Asiatic cholera -was fearful in California and Proved fatal in most cases. The City of Tents was a death trap", Peter shoved off again for the mines, lost his grub to raiding coyotes in a camp on Bear River and then washed gold with fair success on the North Fork of the Yuba River. . Late in the season he took sick and, fearful of cholera, set out for Sacramento in the hope he could embark from there and reach his home before he died. But Peter's health improved. .The sea air did wonders for him and within ten days of the time he left San Francisco, he was well enough to aid in the burial of less fortunate passengers, He crossed the Isthmus and retraced his steps to his home in Illinois, where he remained until ‘61, when the lure of far horizons again drew him westward. eee ARMING proved too tame for the man who “had seen the elephant.” E He moved to Iowa, seeking more excitement, organized an abortive exposition in the Pike's Peak excitement of '59, and in ’61, loaded his wife, his son and five daughters into covered wagons and headed again for California. Henry Comstock persuaded Cook to winter in Carson City, and Cook resumed his trade as coach maker, repairing and conditioning stages of the Overland Stage Company. At one time Peter and his wife were millionaires—on paper—before the speculation bubble burst in Virginia City. He also had a beautiful ranch in Antelope Valley, at the head of the Walker River, until he learned he had inadvertently filed, in Nevada, on a ranch which was located in California. Then tragedy struck the Cooks and the heavy hearted family left Nevada and settled on the Placerville Road, eight miles above Folsom. Peter described the tragedy as follows: “My next to oldest daughter and her girl, 10 years old, were killed by a nitro glycerin explosion at Virginia City, Nevada 1863, caused by a monkey in Colonel Vanboclin’s assay office. ‘Ten lost their lives.” While the Cooks lived near -Placerville, his daughter Ellen Hare ris Keith—the mother of Mrs. Niesen—taught school at Shingle Springs. Cook later established himself aS a prosperous builder of wagons and stage coaches in Walla Walla, Wash. The original copy of Peter Cook's memoirs recently was presented by Mrs, Niesen to the Hix torical Society of Illinois, and a duplicate copy soon will be given to the California State Library.

THE SACRAMENTO ou5, DECEMBER 27, 1941 —— By HARRY P. BAGLEY RS. Nellie Keith Niesen of Willows is a pioneer. Not of the gold rush, but none the less a pioneer who knew the hardships, toil and joy of wresting a wheat ranch from the wilderness. Her father, Richard Harris Keith, also was a pioneer. He came to California in °S1 and tried his hand at mining and freighting before he acquired a wife, and pitted his plough, ax and team against a likely looking bit of wilderness near a grove on the confiuence of Willow and Walker Creeks in Colusa County. And after his farm was started, in 1875, Keith and his family discovered their homestead was on railroad land. They were evicted and Richard Keith packed his family and belongings into his wagon and headed north toward Tehama County and finally located near Olympio. Nellie Keith was only 3 when the family made that journey but she and her brether, a year or so older, remembered vividly the various highlights of the trip. They recalled old Levi Welsh, the wizenend postmaster and general storekeeper at Kanawah, who was a wizard with a six gun. The family happened to halt in front -of the store just as Levi stepped out on a rickety front porch to demonstrate for a crony his unerring skill with an old fashioned cap and ball “hawglaig” by shooting mud balls from the tails of little pigs which were rooting around his store. ae ry HE family “took up” another homestead in Tehama County and their crop was pitifully small that year, considering their land was in the heart of a region which for many years produced more than 90 per cent of the world’s wheat. Mrs, Niesen remembers the tremendous flocks of geese which ravaged their fields, cropping the tender green sprouts as thoroughly a5 swine or, even worse, pulling the wheat up, roots and all, when the ground was wet. Goose shooting was not then a gunner’s outing. It was a tedious, expensive task, an act of self deense. . Mrs. _Niesen unquestionably was a pioneer, and her father before her was a pioneer, but her mother’s father, Peter Cook, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was the outstanding pioneer of the entire family. A capable, well trained craftsman, he bullt a log cabin home in the wilds of Illinois, foreswore _——— Mrs, Ellen Cook “eith teacher at Shind'e the security of a weli established farm to join the gold rush, had his fling in with speculative “feet” and mining stocks in Comstock days, aided the Starr brothers and General McCarver to establish Tacoma, Wash., and, when 89 years old, wrote graphic memoirs of fis life. % Mrs, Niesen has the manuscript written by her grandfather and its terse narration, ‘dating far earlier than the gold rush, gives a fine idea of the manner of men who came, to California. Peter Cook was born on February 1st, of 1818 in Monmouth County, N. J. : His father and mother, John and Mary Morris Cook, were descendants of the discoverers and settlers of Manhattan. In fact, Peter Cook, in 1906 A FARMER inthe GOLD Peter Cook and his wife. Peter is the author of interesting memoirs touching upon important phases in the development of the nation. was lawing for land on which Trinity Church, New York City, PdPR TES was a echool now stands, contending it should revert to his family because a lease for 99 years, granted by his relatives, had expired. Peter’s father moved from Tinton Falls, N. J., to Philadelphia in 1822 and Peter remembered well the time when he was 6, and Lafayette made his last visit in America. “I think it was in 1824,” he wrote in his memoirs. “He (Lafayette) made his first call upon Joseph Bonaparte, then living in his splendid home park on the Delaware River near Trenton.” The corporation of Philadelphia ‘ honored its distinguished guest. It furnished all the school chil. dren with cockades and epaulets and Peter Cook was one of the children who marched in the parade in honor of Lafayette. rs To family moved back to Tinton Falls a few years later and John Cook acquired an extensive orchard. As his boys grew up, he bound them out to learn a trade, and Peter thus pacing an expert carriage maker—a ane ie used vag advantage later agecoar fori g builder in Call eter quarreled with his fath when he was approaching sean hoad, end ran away to New York, intending to co to sea. A friend or ee family persuaded him to While lingering in 0 trying to decide which eee take, he often visited the wharves, and he trod the decks 5 a Walton's Claremont wae PRA at historic craft e& saw New Jersey’, = toed from Amboy to noah Fall: See phores which were the fast communications hetween New York and Washington before Morse's telegraph was invented. “We signaled poles from New York by way of Sandy Hook on to the clty of Washington, with stations every fifteen or twenty miles apart, with character blocks,” he wrote. The news of the day relayed by visual means along this line of poles, with various combinations of the character blocks spelling out the messa 2és, * Petty vetused-tuTinton Falls and soon after the Blackhawk War, his father’s agents, returning from a land hunting expedition, reported an ideal area about fifty miles west of Chicago. Squatters on the Jand were willing to relinquish their claim, for a consideration, and Peter was selected to close the deal, and hold the land until a government survey could be completed. Peter’s westward trip was his honeymoon. ee HE newlyweds traveled by boat to Chicago, by way of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, and at Milwaukee and Waukegan their boat put ashore the German colonists who founded those cities. Five miles beyond a “start up” town called Bristol, a teamster unloaded Peter, his bride and their belongings and left them sitting on a log, wondering what to do next. “Night came on and we lay down in a corner like two babes in the woods,” wrote Peter, “I was almost dead of homesickness. My brave Wife said ‘Peter, do not be discouraged. If others can make a home in this wilderness, you and I can. The hardships, experiences, and obstacles overcome by Peter and Mary Cook is a story in itself. Sufficient to say that when the old rush started, the Cooks had broad, well cultivated acres, a comfortable home, substantial savings, and three children. ° 4 ETER COOK with his neighbors Peter Johnson, Edward smith and David Ferris left Bristol, II. in March of 1850. The season Was unusually cold and at Council Bluffs the travelers found 10,000 emigrants sly awaiting weather chested permit travel. Most Me the emigrants were Mormons, 2 xlous to Start for Salt Lake ity. eee shot buffalo, met various Indians of Various tribes and encountered all the regulation perils ¢ the plains. Once he and his companions . frantically kindled back fires '© Save themselves when Pawnee tribesmen, avenging an insult, fired the prairie grass. “pTney Went ahead of us and fired the @Y grass in a low flat of twenty Miles wide,” wrote Peter, “They Waited until we got in the middle and fired it and the fire came down on us frightfully, We were hemmed in. There was no Wa¥ Of escaping but runour 18ms and keep ahead and they !2¢d ahead, Well, we tame to 2 *™Mall creek, We halted the train. @ carried water {in pails and “Pt down the leeward side, then backfired and wiped out the fireewrhe country for a day's travel Right—The shooting of wild geese was an act of self defense, among small grain farmers when Nellie Keith (Mrs. Nellie Keith Niesen) was a child on a Tehama County wheat ranch. The geese cropped off tender young grain and, in wet weather, pulled it up by the roots. Left—Mrs. Nellie Keith Niesen of Willows, at work on a biographical account of her parents’ lives, which she is preparing for her children and grandchildren. Buffaloes, deer, antelopes and wolves, for a whole day, dead and dying.” A wagon broke down in the Sioux country and eight Indians rode up to visit the emigrants. Their chief was Red Cloud, a brother of Sitting Bull‘of Custer fame.

“The chief,” related Cook, “had a tomahawk hanging by his side, not sharp. I took it from him and filed it sharp.’ Then he gave the Indian an extra file he had, a present which paid dividends in '61 when, while he was again crossing the plains, Red Cloud recognized him as a friend and averted an Indian attack. “Jim Bridger saw us camp a mile from the fort,” wrote Cook, “and he sent a messenger out for us to drive up to the fort. He was an interesting mountaineer and was as king of all the mountain tribes; many squaw wives and children, He claimed to be a cousin vf John Tyler; had 2 polished education and chose a life of hunting and trapping.” Near the City of Rocks in Idaho, a jumbled mass of imposing boulders which closely resembles a_ sizable town, Peter Cook and his friends averted the theft of a valuable thoroughbred _ stallion belonging to one of the party. A white man who headed a band of Bannack Indians coveted the animal. The attempt at the City of Rocks was thwarted, but at Gravelley Ford, on the Humboldt River, the horse disappeared. “That white man. had followed us 200 miles to steal that horse,” Cook related. “And he rode him to Oregon to the Umatilla reservation and from that horse was bred the finest stock in the State of Oregon. I* traced this out years later most correctly.” Cook's party ran out of provisions on the Humboldt and commandeered grub at pistol’s point from a surly Missourian who would not part with a pound of food from his ample stores. But Cook and his companions drew their weapons, helped themselves to a sack of flour and a side of bacon, tossed a $10 gold piece toward their victim and continued on their way. . The party traveled at night to MAGAZINE SECTION—PAGE THREE and over the Sierra. avoid marauding Paiutes made their way . OOK’S account. of Independence Day at Mud Springs is a highlight in his narrative. “Down again,” he wrote. “The following day (July 3rd) brought us to Mud Springs in the midst of excitement; first sight of gold mining; we were met by miners with a hearty greeting; we unsaddled our horses, let them have their liberty; we dropped down under the shade of pines to take a rest and sleep in safety from danger, the red hot sun still shining. I awoke by the sun burning me late next morning, the 4th of July, 1850. “I took a view of my surroundings; below was the only log cabin in sight. I saw a woman come out and go in, very businesslike. I. soon discovered she was keeping then what might be called an accommodation house. I got out my mirror, took a look at myself. I did not much resemble Peter Cook; browned with alkali dust, long beard. I took a shave, I washed the dust off. I changed my suit. I hadn’t looked on it since dear wife had packed it away for me in my far home, Well, now the other boys awoke out of their long sleep. Looking at me in my change they could hardly recognize me. ‘Well, boys, this is the Fourth of July and I am for a square meal!’ I said. I started down to see what the woman was like and take in the surroundings. When I saw her she was gathering wood and water. I came near her but she did not offer any room for me to make her acquaintance. She was all ready for self protection, a large navy revolver hung by her side and she cast at me a look with h don’t come too near in it. I am a judge of human nature. She was \alone and as mad as a setting hen. I went around to the woodpile and picked up an ax; cut up some wood. I kept an eye on her. She looked dangerous. I carried in some wood, took the pails, brought water from the spring, carried it in and set the pails down. I was about to leave. No word was spoken by either. She turned around, ‘Who in hell are you?’ I was quick to answer and give an account of myself. “Who sent you here?’ “Nobody. I saw you were in need of some help.’ “*Yes, I’m alone and this is the Fourth of July and the miners will be here for dinner, Will you help me through?’ “With pleasure, madam,’ ‘Well, this was a godsend for me. Now, will you take a drink, . oe A scene, which might have inspired Alonzo Delano’s illustration of The Green Devil Saloon, was enacted at Mud Springs on Independence Day, 1850, when Peter Cook helped an unnamed and I want you to tend bar and entertain the customers, Whisky, 75 cents a glass, dinner, $1.00.’ “"T sent Thomas, my man, to Sacramento for supplies. The old —has got drunk and spent my ~ money. Who are those men up there?’ “My partners.’ “Call them to have dinner with us.’ “The miners came from all dlrections; a big day. We took in many hundreds of dollars. No change, currency, all dust. A big drunk and nobody killed. We all had a good time. When it Was all ayer she gave me $8 and an invitefon to her house at any time. I have never seen her since, but kept on hearing of her being very rich. She was once well known at St. Louis, Mo. “I mined there a few days and went to Sacramento.” ‘ cee Cok must have lingered longer near Mud Springs than his memoirs indicate, for he fixes the date of the Squatters Riot in Sacramento as July 15th, rather than August 15th. His description follows: “Arrived in Sacramento, on the 15th of July, right in the midst of the squatters’ fight. A hot time jumping lots. Many got sore heads, clubs used freely. The sheriff was shot and killed. We called an election directly and elected another. Asiatic cholera -was fearful in California and Proved fatal in most cases. The City of Tents was a death trap", Peter shoved off again for the mines, lost his grub to raiding coyotes in a camp on Bear River and then washed gold with fair success on the North Fork of the Yuba River. . Late in the season he took sick and, fearful of cholera, set out for Sacramento in the hope he could embark from there and reach his home before he died. But Peter's health improved. .The sea air did wonders for him and within ten days of the time he left San Francisco, he was well enough to aid in the burial of less fortunate passengers, He crossed the Isthmus and retraced his steps to his home in Illinois, where he remained until ‘61, when the lure of far horizons again drew him westward. eee ARMING proved too tame for the man who “had seen the elephant.” E He moved to Iowa, seeking more excitement, organized an abortive exposition in the Pike's Peak excitement of '59, and in ’61, loaded his wife, his son and five daughters into covered wagons and headed again for California. Henry Comstock persuaded Cook to winter in Carson City, and Cook resumed his trade as coach maker, repairing and conditioning stages of the Overland Stage Company. At one time Peter and his wife were millionaires—on paper—before the speculation bubble burst in Virginia City. He also had a beautiful ranch in Antelope Valley, at the head of the Walker River, until he learned he had inadvertently filed, in Nevada, on a ranch which was located in California. Then tragedy struck the Cooks and the heavy hearted family left Nevada and settled on the Placerville Road, eight miles above Folsom. Peter described the tragedy as follows: “My next to oldest daughter and her girl, 10 years old, were killed by a nitro glycerin explosion at Virginia City, Nevada 1863, caused by a monkey in Colonel Vanboclin’s assay office. ‘Ten lost their lives.” While the Cooks lived near -Placerville, his daughter Ellen Hare ris Keith—the mother of Mrs. Niesen—taught school at Shingle Springs. Cook later established himself aS a prosperous builder of wagons and stage coaches in Walla Walla, Wash. The original copy of Peter Cook's memoirs recently was presented by Mrs, Niesen to the Hix torical Society of Illinois, and a duplicate copy soon will be given to the California State Library.