New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1881-01-12

XNOH, ull ~ CuuuSCu1 tuO WIS d1O AWby .
No tinkling bells come sounding DER the
hill:
See nothing but the tall grass thin and brown;
And naught is heard save that the whip poor
Flutes his sad note above the broken bars.
"a. X. Haven, in Harper's Ma0dziaas.
->o-o--
'FORTY.NlNE.
The Remarkable Year or the Present Gem
tury-March of the ArgOnnuts-Thelr 8uf.
ferln9s Crossing the Plalns-Ploneer JUS
tlce-Rude But Tender Mercy---Chlvalry.
WHILE the real Argonauts of 1848
were wandering among the hills and
gulches that flank the western slope of
the Sierra Nevada, armed with pan,
spoon and butcher-knife, testing the
scope and capabilities of the gold
mines, the news of the discovery was
speeding on its way to the Eastern
States by two routes simultaneously. 1t
reached the frontier of Missouri and
Iowa by the Mormon scouts and rowing
trappers about the same time that YES
sells sailing round Cape Horn took it to
New York and Boston; which was in
the late autumn of 1848. The first re-
ports, repeatedly confirmed aud en-
larged upon, threw the whole country
into the widest excitement. In the
City of New York and the extreme
Western States the fever was hottest.
The year 1849 was in some other re-
spects the most remarkable year of the
present century. It found France. a
Republic, with Bonaparte President
by popular election. All Germany was
in armed revolt against kingcraft.
Hungary was in rebellion against the
Austrian Emperor. There was revolt
in Lombardy against the Austrian yoke;
in Naples and Palermo against the
King of the two Sicilies. The people
forced the rulers of Tuscany, Modena
and Parma to grant Constitutions.
There was rank revolution in Ireland
under the lead of Smith OBrien,
Mitchell and Meagher. The Chartists
were seriously moving in England for
universal suffrage. Fierce war ragged
in Northern Italy between the Italians
and Austria; and the year opened with
storm clouds, social and political, visi-
BILE all over the Old World. Cholera,
that frightful contribution of Asia to
modern Europe, more terrible than the
ancient plague, was raging on the con-
tinent and advancing toward America,
where the terrors it inspired in 1882
were soon to be redoubled in grand
harvest of death and desolation through
out the cities and towns of the Missis-
sippi Valley, and all along the thorough
fares Gas yet hardly exPlored), to the
shores of the Pacific. The extreme
western limit of the white settlements
in 1849 was the States of Missouri, Iowa
and the Territory of Minnesota. Beyond
that there lay a terra iaacog,aita known
as "Missouri Territory and the elm
dian Territory south of it. Between
the lines of Iowa and Missouri and the
Rocky Mountains there were not, all
told, over five hundred whites. What
few there were included missionaries
among the Delawares and Shawnees,
Wyandottes, Pottowattomies. Senecas,
Osages, and Indian agents with their as
sistants and servants at the various
agencies. The Pawnees were still a
formidable tribe. The wigwams of the
Sioux and the hunting camps of the
Comanches lined the Platte, Arkansas,
Missouri and their tributary streams for
hundreds of miles in what is now the
richest and most productive agricultural
regions of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
and Dakota, with it's population of more
than two millions.
The people of the frontier States
were in that happiest of all earthly
conditions - without wealth, without
poverty-a community of small farmers
and traders. There were then no large
towns. St. Louis was a place of So, 900.
Chicago was of less Importance than
Sacramento or Omaha now, and Kan
sas City contained a few log huts and
some 300 population. The National
census, completed a year later, gave
\ Iowa less than 100000 and Minnesota
but 5000 white inhabitants. Twenty
miles out from Council Bluffs and forty
from Independence brought the hunter
to the buffalo range. Beyond that to-
ward the setting sun stretched limit
less prairie far on and on into what was
then supposed to be "desert," and
so marked on the maps, but what is
now proved to be a very fertile part of
the continent, sloplng gradually upward
toward the Black Hills and the Rocky
range, where it is watered by innumer-
able clear, cold streams from the
heights of everlasting snow. Through
this unexplored wilderness Law the
routes (for there were severaD of the
grand army of California pioneers that
assembled along the banks of the Mis-
souri, from early in March to late in
May, 1849. They represented all
classes, all States aud Nations, all
trades, callings and professions; but
not all ages. Out of every hundred it
would have been hard to pick one man
over forty; and to every five hundred
men there was hardly one woman.
There were young fellows of twenty,
fresh from college, young lawyers,
young doctors, young preachers, young
farmers. young invalids. Some were
in wagons by pairs, trios, quartets;
some mounted on mules, ponies or
horses, with an extra animal to pack
the necessary provisions; and some
few were bold and hardy enough to I'M
dertake the adventure afoot, trusting to
the rifle. for their supplies. One Of
these latter, an lrishman, carrying q
pack heavy enough to have killed a
mule in fortnight, was picked up on
the Platte; four hundred and fifty miles
out from St. 10, and brought through
in a train as far as Thou
sand Springs Valley, where he was
expelled for misconduct. He worked
his way on foot to Sacramento, and.
after accommodating $4,000 in the mines,
returned to Western city, where he
became an Alderman and a capitalist,
with millions at his command. He was
last seen on the road near the sink of
the Humboldt, cuttirg the throat of a
mired horse and feeding himself upon
choice bits of the carcass. The pas
sage from the Missouri to the Sacra-
mento occupied from one hundred to
one hundred and thirty days. Gener-
ally the provision was made for but
ninety days, and this mistake caused a
scarcity of supplies. The cholera fol
lowed the trail, as plague pursues the
pilgrims to Mecca. and the graves of its
victims were thicker than mile stones
on the highway. There was no time
for a waste of sympathy on the dead or
fon6ornoSa m tho 1uinne sThox xr,o,,o