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Page: of 436
FEBRUARY—APRIL 1849
“I don’t expect to have much trouble. I wrote and said I’d meet him at
Wellington and that’s a very small settlement.”
“But if you couldn’t find him—would you go on alone?” asked Mary.
“IT suppose I would, but I don’t expect to have to.”
“And if he decides not to go with you?”
Charley smiled. ‘“‘He’ll go. It was Niles who first got me to thinking
about exploring the west. It’s the most natural thing in the world that
he’d want to go. You’ve said yourselves in recent weeks that you feared
he’d already gone. That’s one of the things which forced my decision—the thought that he might leave without me! I don’t think I’d ever
forgive myself if he went to California and I passed up the chance to go
with him.”
“Well, I think you’re doing a very foolish thing, Charles,” stated the
Judge. “But if I can’t change your mind, I can at least try to influence
Niles. I’m going to write and tell him not to go and to try to bring you
home as well!’
“[’m sorry you feel it’s foolish, Uncle John, but I’m not sorry you’re
going to write Niles. I’d feel badly if I discovered later that your reasoning could make him change his mind, but that you hadn’t offered it. I
want Niles to feel it’s the right thing to do.”
Not only John Niles, but Mary and Cornelia also wrote to Niles and
listed all the reasons why he should not go to California. And while they
wrote, Charley packed. On March 5, 1849, he left Rensselaerville for
New York City and Brooklyn, to say goodbye to relatives. Then he went
back to Albany and caught the cars for Rochester, where he took the
night packet to Buffalo on the Erie Canal, crossed the Wire Bridge over
the Niagara River into Canada, and traveled by stage all the way to Detroit. He wrote to Cornelia from a stage stop at Niles, Michigan:
..a rich time we had, too—2 load{s], 18 in all, and among them 12
Chippewa Indians and Squaws with a conductor and interpreter—what
would you think of seeing me with two pretty squaws facing me accompanied by their copper colored companions?—I acknowledge there was
no danger of my being smut, as Deb says, but not exactly in the sense
she would imply—the balance of our companions were good company, .
can assure you—and I had rare sport observing the doings of our
company.
We arrived in London, [Canada] Tuesday 12 p.m. and were delayed as
we supposed until 10 A.m., but proved to be 12 o'clock before starting.
“Our host” was well acquainted with the [William Henry] Niles family
and offered to carry me there if . would stay the day—should have gone
biog A