Windsorians go to California, 1883

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Windsorians Go To California, 1883

WINDSORIANS GO TO CALIFORNIA, FEB. 4, 1883
(From Hants Journal)
A carload of Windsorians for California - a large party of respectable persons, mostly farmer's sons, from near Windsor, Nova Scotia, left here yesterday for the Pacific Coast.
The party consists of 14 persons and four children. Their names are as follows:

John Sweet, his wife (Margaret) and two daughters (Eliza and Janet), and his son, Charles B. Sweet and his wife (Sarah), John B. Sweet, his wife (Susan), and their two children (Alfred and William), all of Martock. William Leighton, Charles Gormley, Jane Kehoe and Charles Vaughn, of Windsor Forks: Dill Scott, St. Croix, and Miss Jennie Sweet of Wentworth.

They will have a special car to themselves most of the way. The sum paid for the tickets amounted to over $1,000.

--------------------- (commentary by Iola Young) --------------------------------------

Sam Lytle's name was omitted from the list. Also there are but two children listed.

Frank Lytle, a boy of nearly fifteen, went down to nearby John Taylor's to borrow the horse and sled and he drove Charles B. Sweet and his wife (Sarah Lytle) and Sam Lytle to the railway station.

This was not a farm sled nor was it a sleigh. It had a bed with boards around the sides and boards could be laid across to make as many seats as needed. He drove back to the Lytle home and picked up his passengers.(I don't know if he picked up John Sweet and his wife and two daughters or if they went with the other Sweets).

It was early morning and snow was on the ground. There were frozen drifts, three and four feet high on the road, so they drove through the fields. At Newport Station the passengers boarded a local train and took the emigrant train at Windsor Junction. The train crossed into Maine and travelled via Boston. This special car contained the emigrants and all their possessions. Here they cooked, ate and slept through the long journey.

In San Francisco the group stayed at a hotel to await a steamer sailing to Eureka, in Humboldt County. Richard Sweet, who was living in Livermore, met them in San Francisco, as his sister, Miss Jennie Sweet, was going there (Livermore). James Sweet, who was already in Humboldt, and I believe, was working at Fern Cottage Ranch, had a house for his parents and family.

They made up "field beds" on the floor. The women of the party all slept in one long bed in one room while the men folk slept in another room. A number of years later we (the Charles B. Sweet family) lived in that same house for several years, so every nook and cranny of it is familiar. The house is still there (1961) but the orchard and trees surrounding it are gone and it looks very bare.

by: Iola S. Young, Placerville, California

from pg. 38 & 39 Hunter Family History by Iola Young and Belle Smiley 1966

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