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A Frontier Lady: Recollections of the Gold Rush and Early California
Since it was first published in 1932, A Frontier Lady has held a high and special place in the literature of Americas westward migration. Written in the 1880s at the request of her son, the philosopher and educator Josiah Royce, Sarah Royce's narrative of the family odyssey across the continent and of their early years in California is also the portrait of a remarkable woman. In the words of her daughter-in-law, "Wherever she was, she made civilization, even when it seemed that she had little indeed from which to make it."
144 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1977
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July 21, 2021
I truly enjoyed this relatively short book that tells of major portion of a woman's life. It was based, on the request of her son, by then a professor at Yale, on her diaries of her journey west from St. Louis to the California Gold Country by covered wagon with her husband and toddler daughter in 1849. They proceeded to Sacramento, arriving on January 1, 1850, in time for a major flood that drove her family and many others on to San Francisco. Her story ends with them back in the hills, searching over several moves for a reasonably solid house and a community with families.
Her writing is very good, without drawing out the tale or over-dramatizing it. Her son writes an intro and epilogue, so he may have edited the writing significantly. But I shouldn't underestimate this woman, who had a fair amount of education. An element she leaves out, on purpose I would guess: why they went west in the first place, why they moved so many times (a few, but not all, were because they were inadequately housed). I can only surmise that her husband kept looking for something better, and she declined to say anything critical about him.
The 19th century attitudes of white people show up--she never questions whether it is appropriate for white people to be taking over the ancestral land of others and chewing it up to find riches. On the other hand, she speaks of everyone fairly politely, even of Indians who mount minor attacks on them during their journey. She denigrates a group of Indians called the Diggers--an exception.
MKR: This is one of the few books discussed by Prof O'Sullivan in a course in California History through Literature that I decided to read.
The copy I was delivered by the Sonoma County library system was out of the non-circulating stacks. Evidently it was printed in 1939, so the pages were brittle, with some tears. Goodreads turned up a newer edition when I searched here.
Her writing is very good, without drawing out the tale or over-dramatizing it. Her son writes an intro and epilogue, so he may have edited the writing significantly. But I shouldn't underestimate this woman, who had a fair amount of education. An element she leaves out, on purpose I would guess: why they went west in the first place, why they moved so many times (a few, but not all, were because they were inadequately housed). I can only surmise that her husband kept looking for something better, and she declined to say anything critical about him.
The 19th century attitudes of white people show up--she never questions whether it is appropriate for white people to be taking over the ancestral land of others and chewing it up to find riches. On the other hand, she speaks of everyone fairly politely, even of Indians who mount minor attacks on them during their journey. She denigrates a group of Indians called the Diggers--an exception.
MKR: This is one of the few books discussed by Prof O'Sullivan in a course in California History through Literature that I decided to read.
The copy I was delivered by the Sonoma County library system was out of the non-circulating stacks. Evidently it was printed in 1939, so the pages were brittle, with some tears. Goodreads turned up a newer edition when I searched here.
October 2, 2012
A wonderful recollection of one family's emigration to California in 1849. In 100 or so pages, Sarah Royce recalls her journey across the plains, the desert and over the enormous Sierras. She had a 2 year old daughter at the time, but a few years later birthed Josiah Royce, who went on to Harvard and reknown as a philosopher. The book was penned in response to Josiah's request and was written in an informal style thought to be more of a letter to him than an essay intended for the world. I think that today's US society is materialistic, so it was fun to compare today's materialism with the materialism that led families to trek cross-country risking lives in search of gold. And, the story is rich with risk to lives - difficult encounters with native americans, worries about running out of food and water, crossing the sierras on a mule in October with a 2 year old in arms... Their successful crossing of the sierras was largely due to government assistance - this was less than 2 yrs after the Donner tragedy and the government had begun sending rescue parties out in October to make sure that late crossing emigrants were not stuck in snowstorms. In these days of the "government is evil" mantra, it was so refreshing to read the joy of this family as they saw the government employee riding towards them!And then, after spending a short time in a mining camp, they went to the new town of Sacramento and suffered through a horrible flood that drove them to San Francisco - all of this occurring in less than a year. It's a great story that I would recommend for anyone, but especially great for middle school classes studying this period, given how short and readable it is.
March 21, 2022
This little book is a moving first-person account by a woman who journeyed from Iowa to California with her husband and young daughter. Sarah has a clear and sure voice. She seemed to embrace life wherever she was and make the best of it. I got the feeling she was full of energy and always pushing forward. At the beginning of their journey, as rain threatened to delay them, she writes, "Had I not made up my mind to encounter many storms? If we were going, let us go, and meet what we were to meet, bravely" (3).
What stood out to me was her faith and her recollections of being alone in the vast expanse of the west. At one point, lost in the desert with only her husband, daughter, and a few other men traveling with them, she writes, "only a woman who has been alone upon a desert with her helpless child can have any adequate idea of my experience for the next hour or two. But that consciousness of an unseen Presence still sustained me" (45). At every point in their journey, whether observing the beauty around her or detailing a near disaster, she expresses gratitude to God.
My favorite moment in Sarah's recollections is when her family reaches the Sierra Nevada range. It is late in the season and already snowing. They need to cross as quickly as possible, but are encumbered with their wagon and don't have mules or horses to carry them. Sarah was wishing there was some way her and her daughter could ride, but it was an impossibility, as they didn't have a trained mountain animal. The next day she sees something moving down the road in the distance. She assumes it's Indians, but it turns out to be two men from the U.S. government's Relief Company. These rescuers had been informed that a woman and child were in need of help by another woman in a wagon train who had already reached California. These men didn't have orders to go out as far as they did, but the woman nagged at them so much that they finally set out to find the Royce's. So, miraculously, Sarah and her daughter now have a mule to ride over the steep mountain passes. The Royce's leave their wagon and are able to cross the Sierras, just ten days before a giant storm would have made it impossible. I love what Sarah says about this experience:
"The thought of their being heaven-sent - that had so lightly flashed into my mind as I at first watched their rapid descent of the hill, with flying garments - grew into a sweetly solemn conviction; and I stood in mute adoration, breathing, in my inmost heart, thanksgiving to that Providential Hand which and taken hold of the conflicting movements, the provoking blunders, and the contradictory plans, of our lives and those of a dozen other people, who a few days before were utterly unknown to each other, and many miles apart, and had from those rough, broken materials wrought out for us so unlooked for a deliverance" (64).
What stood out to me was her faith and her recollections of being alone in the vast expanse of the west. At one point, lost in the desert with only her husband, daughter, and a few other men traveling with them, she writes, "only a woman who has been alone upon a desert with her helpless child can have any adequate idea of my experience for the next hour or two. But that consciousness of an unseen Presence still sustained me" (45). At every point in their journey, whether observing the beauty around her or detailing a near disaster, she expresses gratitude to God.
My favorite moment in Sarah's recollections is when her family reaches the Sierra Nevada range. It is late in the season and already snowing. They need to cross as quickly as possible, but are encumbered with their wagon and don't have mules or horses to carry them. Sarah was wishing there was some way her and her daughter could ride, but it was an impossibility, as they didn't have a trained mountain animal. The next day she sees something moving down the road in the distance. She assumes it's Indians, but it turns out to be two men from the U.S. government's Relief Company. These rescuers had been informed that a woman and child were in need of help by another woman in a wagon train who had already reached California. These men didn't have orders to go out as far as they did, but the woman nagged at them so much that they finally set out to find the Royce's. So, miraculously, Sarah and her daughter now have a mule to ride over the steep mountain passes. The Royce's leave their wagon and are able to cross the Sierras, just ten days before a giant storm would have made it impossible. I love what Sarah says about this experience:
"The thought of their being heaven-sent - that had so lightly flashed into my mind as I at first watched their rapid descent of the hill, with flying garments - grew into a sweetly solemn conviction; and I stood in mute adoration, breathing, in my inmost heart, thanksgiving to that Providential Hand which and taken hold of the conflicting movements, the provoking blunders, and the contradictory plans, of our lives and those of a dozen other people, who a few days before were utterly unknown to each other, and many miles apart, and had from those rough, broken materials wrought out for us so unlooked for a deliverance" (64).
August 31, 2020
It was... fine. For a book that was 130 pages, finishing this book was like pulling teeth.
This book has three separate prefaces, all disclaiming the reader that Royce did not write the book with the intention it would ever be published (she wrote it for her son, a Harvard professor). All three prefaces discuss the importance of Royce's faith and the stream of consciousness writing style.
The third preface goes so far as to say that if the reader doesn't read this through the lens of an intimate retelling for her son, much of the magic will be lost. I definitely found this to be true, as there are quite a few parts of this book that would be important to me if the author was my mother, but because she is not, I was frequently bored.
There are parts of this book that are hard to read, due to the author's prejudice against the native peoples she encounters on her journey. I understand this was nearly 200 years ago, and I understand the perceived possible "danger" of many of these such encounters. But in any of the three prefaces, or the epilogue, I would have appreciated a reflection on this rather than the repeated sentiment of "she didn't intend to publish this." I understood that she was speaking plainly and without filter because of that. But one of the prefaces was written by the publisher, and I'm sorely disappointed they didn't do a better job of addressing it.
The *actual* book was fine. Her retellings are deeply overlaid with Proper Lady Speak and so much of the vibrancy is diluted, in my opinion. There are moments of greatness where her wonder peeks through the veil and those are the best parts of the book. I wish the entire book was that way, but it was not. Unfortunately, I was extremely bored at moments that should have been anything but boring (this is why I decided on 2 stars instead of 3, as I did find the content interesting enough).
This was a disappointment to me. Oh well.
This book has three separate prefaces, all disclaiming the reader that Royce did not write the book with the intention it would ever be published (she wrote it for her son, a Harvard professor). All three prefaces discuss the importance of Royce's faith and the stream of consciousness writing style.
The third preface goes so far as to say that if the reader doesn't read this through the lens of an intimate retelling for her son, much of the magic will be lost. I definitely found this to be true, as there are quite a few parts of this book that would be important to me if the author was my mother, but because she is not, I was frequently bored.
There are parts of this book that are hard to read, due to the author's prejudice against the native peoples she encounters on her journey. I understand this was nearly 200 years ago, and I understand the perceived possible "danger" of many of these such encounters. But in any of the three prefaces, or the epilogue, I would have appreciated a reflection on this rather than the repeated sentiment of "she didn't intend to publish this." I understood that she was speaking plainly and without filter because of that. But one of the prefaces was written by the publisher, and I'm sorely disappointed they didn't do a better job of addressing it.
The *actual* book was fine. Her retellings are deeply overlaid with Proper Lady Speak and so much of the vibrancy is diluted, in my opinion. There are moments of greatness where her wonder peeks through the veil and those are the best parts of the book. I wish the entire book was that way, but it was not. Unfortunately, I was extremely bored at moments that should have been anything but boring (this is why I decided on 2 stars instead of 3, as I did find the content interesting enough).
This was a disappointment to me. Oh well.
October 12, 2023
This book didn't give as much of an insight into the varied lives of the people and the unique culture of the California gold rush as I had hoped. Sarah Royce lived the fairly limited life of a housewife watching over three children while her husband engaged in commerce (rather than mining).
She was also a respectable and devout Christian woman and didn't witness firsthand any of the happenings in places like saloons, gambling halls, entertainment venues, and (of course) brothels, where a lot of the unique nature of the gold rush was on display. She also doesn't seem to have spent much time--maybe a few months at most--in the gold fields themselves, so that's another area lacking in direct observations.
Having said this, the account of the Royce family's half-year journey from the midwest to California in a wagon, as recounted in the first half of the book, was fascinating and worthwhile. Sarah Royce displays her talents in storytelling here.
However, the second half of the book, recounting the Royce family's life in California, was largely disappointing because it mainly related the domestic life of a family on a frontier--almost a generic frontier of the wild west, without illuminating the unique characteristics of the gold rush as a frontier.
The chapter on "Morals" in the second half of the book was particularly uninteresting. The reader doesn't get much out of the moralizing. Similarly, we could have done without the chapter prefaces containing lengthy quotes from Sarah Royce's son Josiah, a lecturer in philosophy at Harvard. Josiah's philosophical musings didn't add anything to his mother's writings.
She was also a respectable and devout Christian woman and didn't witness firsthand any of the happenings in places like saloons, gambling halls, entertainment venues, and (of course) brothels, where a lot of the unique nature of the gold rush was on display. She also doesn't seem to have spent much time--maybe a few months at most--in the gold fields themselves, so that's another area lacking in direct observations.
Having said this, the account of the Royce family's half-year journey from the midwest to California in a wagon, as recounted in the first half of the book, was fascinating and worthwhile. Sarah Royce displays her talents in storytelling here.
However, the second half of the book, recounting the Royce family's life in California, was largely disappointing because it mainly related the domestic life of a family on a frontier--almost a generic frontier of the wild west, without illuminating the unique characteristics of the gold rush as a frontier.
The chapter on "Morals" in the second half of the book was particularly uninteresting. The reader doesn't get much out of the moralizing. Similarly, we could have done without the chapter prefaces containing lengthy quotes from Sarah Royce's son Josiah, a lecturer in philosophy at Harvard. Josiah's philosophical musings didn't add anything to his mother's writings.
September 29, 2022
She and her husband and 2-year-old girl came west in 1849. Theirs was the next-to-last party across the Sierra before winter, and to get across they had to abandon their wagon and load what they could on 2 mules and the oxen.
This was written in the 1880s largely from her diary and for her son, Josaiah, professor at Harvard, for his history of the westward expansion. Incredible hardships on the prairies and deserts, and a good insight into what they thought caused cholera. I only wish she had included more details, how specifically her husband made a living in California, etc., but this was not written for publication. The first edition appeared some 50 years after she wrote up her account.
This is history as I love to read it, alive and vital.
This was written in the 1880s largely from her diary and for her son, Josaiah, professor at Harvard, for his history of the westward expansion. Incredible hardships on the prairies and deserts, and a good insight into what they thought caused cholera. I only wish she had included more details, how specifically her husband made a living in California, etc., but this was not written for publication. The first edition appeared some 50 years after she wrote up her account.
This is history as I love to read it, alive and vital.
December 2, 2018
Very hard to rank this using 5 stars, because the manuscript was never meant for publication, being the private recollections of a mother to her son (the son in this case happens to be Josiah Royce, the renowned philosopher) about their family's settlement in 1849 California. An interesting piece of American history, but not as informative as I had hoped it would be when I picked it up. The book's strongest points are in S. Royce's reflections on the moral development of the start-up communities and in her own religious experiences.
December 6, 2018
You know it's a good book when you lose yourself entirely and simply are there living it with them. It was refreshing to read about a woman whose faith was strengthened by the trials she faced traveling to California during the gold rush and in the struggles, she faced settling down once they arrived.
January 1, 2024
A true history buff will enjoy this book. While I am interested in this time period of history, there were times when I simply had to scan ahead as the text was dragging.
February 13, 2013
I didn't find this as informative as I had hoped. It was not solely my choice to read, I had to choose from a list my professor gave me. I was hoping that I could say much better things about the book in my class review, but I couldn't. The author dedicated 2/3rd of the book to the frontier but left out any emotion toward almost everything, except her daughter. Although in the last chapter (roughly), she decided to lighten up and put some life into her writing. Royce goes on to describe the social life of San Francisco and how females act/should act and she continues on about her religious beliefs.
December 11, 2010
I really enjoyed the actual account by Sarah Royce - very interesting. But there were these added extra notes from the relative that compiled and published the account that were focused on this certain philosophy of morals and integrity, etc., that I found rather tiresome. If it would have been just Sarah's account it would have been much better.
December 19, 2013
This was a delightful book. True recollections by a lady who headed west from Ohio in 1849 with her husband and baby daughter in a covered wagon. Most of the book is about their journey west. The end is about their life in California. Her husband was into mining. Fascinating to imagine her courage, her optimism, and her memory of facts!
December 24, 2022
A Frontier Lady: Recollections of the Gold Rush and Early California by Sarah Royce – If you love Westerns, this one is unique because it is from a lady’s perspective. Anyone who wants to know if their historical fiction is reflecting reality should read this one! She was a cool lady! Happy Reading!
October 31, 2008
This is Sarah Royce's story of her family's trip across the continent in a covered wagon and her observations on the life style and morals in the various mining camps she lived in afterwards. Sarah's Christian faith shines through her various struggles as she trusts God
September 16, 2014
very interesting to learn about how it was for the women at this time
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