Jersey Gold

This narrative history of the Newark Overland Company, New Jersey, is built on the 1964 discovery by Dr. Thomas D. Clark who found the journal of a member, Charles G. Gray. The co-authors independently began working on locating primary sources about the Newark Company and in the pursuit of information uncovered significant amounts of historic documents that shed light on the Newark Company. Their diligence in following every lead turned up large amounts of primary sources, many of them letters, that formed the basis of news from the Jersey Company that was printed in newspapers in the East. In developing the narrative, the authors blend together family history and travel on the Overland Trail in 1849 to California. The authors introduce the key organizer, Dr. John Stevens Darcy, within the historical context of New Jersey, the setting where the Newark Company developed. They provide a considerable amount of background in preparation for launching the journey in the spring of 1849. Unlike some gold rush narratives and journals, this book is not a day-to-day travel account of the group. Instead, it makes occasional reference to locations on the trail: Independence, Ft. Kearny, Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, the Humboldt River Valley locations, the Sierra Nevada, routes through and around the Black Rock Desert, and routes to California gold fields. The authors use several illustrations of the period and a few maps of locations along the trail, adding to readers’ understanding. Readers would benefit from a map of the New Jersey location of the leading participants, maps interspersed through the body of the work that give more information about locations, and a map of the Gold Rush Era of California to better understand the historical context of the territory and subsequent state.

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology) · Gold rush · Independence (probability theory) · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Newspaper · Sociology · Wright · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Archaeology and Natural History · History