Collection: Directories and Documents

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Title: Lost Grass Valley Gold Rush History of the Wilhelm & Binkleman Pioneer Families by Waldo C.F. Potter (2024) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Author: Waldo C.F. Potter Published: 2024 # of Pages: 374 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-12 19:32:15 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:22:43 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:22:43

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 374  

This historical narrative document says that the David, Sophia, and Rosa Binklemann family traveled via clipper ship from New York City in 1853, going through the Isthmus of Panama by mule and canoe and then on to San Francisco by another clipper ship and then on to Grass Valley arriving sometime in 1853. My great-grandmother, Rosa Binkleman, almost died due to an illness. The leader of their guides wanted to leave Rosa. It was common in those times to leave behind anyone near death who was dragging down the travel progress of the group. Fortunately, Rosa lived. We found in newspaper articles later in her life in Grass Valley, California, that her nickname was “Rosie.” Also, Sophia Binklemann’s nickname was “Sophie.” Daught’s historical narrative had one error. Sophie Mader’s birth year is confirmed on Ancestory.com as 1830. She had thirteen children, three of whom died due to diphtheria, one who caught her dress on fire in Chinatown, Grass Valley, and another a month after birth. There are some discrepancies here between her and David’s obituaries and Ancestory.com. The obituaries show that they had eleven children, and Ancestory.com only shows nine. . believe that Daught’s narrative quoting her greatgrandmother and mother that there were thirteen children is historically correct. The Binklemanns were a very private family. It was prevalent in those days on the frontier for stillborn babies or babies that passed away young not to be caught by the U.S. Census since it is only taken every ten years. The census taker would only record those living in a home in the year of the census, not those who might have been born and died in the previous ten years. Everyone at this time was born at home. Interestingly, the obituaries contradict both Daught’s narrative and Ancestory.com. Sophie and her young daughter, Rosa Binkleman, would have been some of the few females in Grass Valley who were married and had children. In 1851, Grass Valley was just a loosely knit mining town. According to Ralph Mann’s “After the Gold Rush,” Grass Valley and its neighboring village three miles north only had 2% of the early comers as married with very few children. Most of the population consisted of men between 20 and 40 years old. This means that Sophia and Rosa were some of the original female settlers of Grass Valley and were in a mining town that contained the vices of men, such as drinking and “ladies of the night” establishments. This was not an ordinary American woman’s world. They were true pioneers. According to the book After the Gold Rush, Society in Grass Valley and Nevada City, California 1849 — 1870 by Ralph Mann, there were 967 men in Grass Valley in charge of a household on the 1870 U.S. Census. Of that number, there were 59 Germans, 315 American-born, 321 Great Britain (primarily Cornish miners), 239 Irish, 16 French & Italians, and 17 Canadians. Of the German-born, 41% were artisans, which includes beer brewers, and 39% were professionals or businessmen, with most of this number being German Jews. This gives you a feel for the ethnic make-up of Grass Valley after David Binklemann had lived there for seventeen years, just as Theodore H. Wilhelm arrived as an Americanborn citizen from Burlington, lowa, with a German-born father. As you can see from Daught’s historical narrative, David and Sophie Binklemann were called “Grossvater” and “Grossmuter” by their grandchildren. These names are German for grandfather and grandmother. 12