Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1880-12-22
.sEvENrY.rryE.,,

A Pioneer Indeed-The UPS an,
Downs OF Frontier Life Exemp
liHed I'm the History Of q En-
reka Citizen.
Talk about your "~old-timers," but W,
have n here in Eureka whose history haI
never been heralded beyond his W door
step, though he has experienced the up.
and downs Of Pacific Coast life, from alb
ject poverty to his ready hundreds Of thou.
sands in "dust" and coin.. We refer to
U. p. MONROE,
Commonly known as Colonel Monroe
The Colonel called into the SENTINEL office
last evening after his paper. He glided in
as spry as q boy Of IS, looked at the date Of
his paper, and remarked, ''This is not the
21st day Of December, is it He was an
swered in the affirmative.
"Then I have lost my reckoning on the
day Of the month, but not in the number
of years. Do you know young fellow"
addressing the reporter, ''that to-day 1 am
rs years old p"
The reporter assured him he had no idea
Of such being the case. from his activity
and evident good health.
"Never felt more frisky nor had q better
appetite for beans in my life, continued
the Colonel. He was in 3 favorable mood
for a few minutes talk, and the reporter
CLEANED the following in an off-hand way
The Colonel is o native New Yorker !;
started in the summer OF 40, with his wife
and little ones, to cross the Plains for Cal
~ifornia, the land Of gold. He provided
sheepskin sacks to pack the gold in before
starting.
At st. Joe, Missouri, they were making
up a train Of wagons. He Joined in, and
they organized with Jim Durlin, of Ash
land, Ohio, as Captain. When strung out
the outfit numbered twenty-six wagons,
hauled by oxen, mules and horses, and
there were 1874 souls, married and single,
old and young. Two of the number were
drowned at the Green River crossing, in
Wyoming, and two died at Ash Hollow
from an overdose of beans. The Captain
here ordered every bean unloaded, and
there they were left, for those in the rear
to fill up on. Their route OF travel lay up
the Little Blue ; thence to Fort K~earney,
where there was but one house in those
days, and it was the only house seen be-
tween st. Joe and the camp of Shasta,
California. From Kearney they coursed
up the Platte River, crossing the same no
less than twenty-seven times. Those famil-
lar with that quicksand stream can form
some idea of such q task with 80 large o
train. The
INDIANS
We're thicker than mosquitoes In an " Ar
kansaw bottom;" sometimes it was "swap''
and sometimes it was fight, and all the
time 1t was watch watching did more
good than praying in those days. On they
came, through South Pass and into Shasta,
just six months and twenty three days out
st. Joe. Shasta had one log house
up and covered. The Colonel threw up
his wagon sheet under q tree, and told his
wife and little ones to make themselves
comfortable while he filled one of the
sacks. He started in early with pick,
shovel and pan. He found one little
He wrapped it up in leaves and
old scraps of paper until the bundle was
about as big as his head, vent home, and
his wife spread q sheet on the ground and
unrolled the package until she found the
gem. The Colonel laughed, and fired
shovel, pick and pan over the bank; swore
he was not in luck at that business and
the next day built a house-the second
one in Shasta. In a few days after he
p~rospected around and concluded that he
would take up some land in the Sacramento
valley. He moved down to where Monroe
vile now is and located. He soon found
out he was IN ga grant," He purchased
the grant--or a portion Of it in 80. Hotel
keeping, trading and mining ventures
caused money to flow into his hands until
his sacks wouldn't hold it. He filed
whisky kegs with it. A key full Of whisky
in those days was as good as a thousand
dollars-if judiciously handled. He helped
to organize Colusa county, and in 81 used
up several thousand dollars in ~snagging the
Sacramento river and put thereon q couple
Of steamers, one called the Express"
which cost the modest sum Of $S4, 900, and
the " Jack Hayes" for which he paid $780,
600. Again the money rolled in, and he
freighted everything. The junior Of the
SENTINEL he moved, with his Office, the
Hor~,z~ - A. ~.u~- l~o~. O.o~.