ENTERPRISING YOUNG MEN
The California Gold Rush Memoir
of Robert Mason Clark
Missourian Robert M. Clark was twenty-one when he left the lush prairies and bluffs of Marion County and its biggest city, Palmyra. Along with six other Northeast Missouri men—his brother Sam, Bill Anderson, Frank See, Mike Heckard, Carson Gatewood, and Henley Maddox—Bob Clark sought adventure crossing the plains of North America to find gold in California and return by the Pacific Ocean route through Nicaragua, the Gulf of Mexico, and up the Mississippi River.
This is his account of the hardships, delights, new discoveries and thrilling encounters during his journeys of April 1850 through January 1852, when upon reaching Saint Louis, he successfully returned home by horseback to the family farm in Marion County, Missouri.
“An excellent read”
~ Travis Boley, Association Manager
“What an amazing adventure! This story is part of a very important era of American history. I enjoyed reading this book very much.”
~ Richard Garey, Historian / Stage Actor
Gold Rush Adventures Chronicled in New Book
by Mary Lou Montgomery
Special to The Courier-Post
The Robert Mason Clark memoir addresses the hardships, discoveries, and thrilling encounters during a journey across the plains states, departing for California from Palmyra, Missouri, in April 1850 and returning home in January 1852. Some of the adventures include:
- Encounters with nature and its challenges, as well as challenges among men
- Meeting Kit Carson and government wagons filled with furs
- Crossing barren plains, waters, mountain ranges and dessert with wagons, horses and oxen
- Organizing within a “train” and within a mining company
- Creating a settlement for miners
- How to build a sluice and rocker, and other mining methods
- Sailing out of San Francisco Bay and into the open waters and storms of the Pacific
- Traveling across Nicaragua to reach the Gulf of Mexico
- Resting in Havana, Cuba, before departing for New Orleans
- Traveling up the Mississippi in a cutter with side wheels
- Returning to Northeast Missouri by horseback
Available online and at your favorite bookstore
