38 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 
During this period Mr. Charles learned the carpen- 
ter’s and joiner’s trade at which he worked during the 
Summer months. This occupation was varied for some 
five years by that of keeping school in the winter, 
for which employment he received during the first year, 
eleven dollars per month and “boarded around.” When 
he quit teaching, five years later, he was receiving twenty 
dollars a month, the highest wages paid in his county at 
this time. That very year gold was discovered in Cali- 
fornia and our school teacher caught the “gold fever.” 
Consequently, on March the 13th, 1850, he left home for 
California. From Cincinnati he went down the Ohio to 
St. Louis. He “fitted out” for the overland trip at Inde- 
-pendence, Mo., and after a westerly journey of five 
months finally “brought up at Hangtown, or Placerville, 
Cal., on the 20th day of August. After trying the mines 
unsuccessfully for a few months he returned to Ohio by 
way of the Isthmus. Highteen months was now spent at 
home when a second expedition to California was under- 
taken. This time a longer stay was made in California, 
but with no better results, the return to Ohio being made 
by way of Nicaragua. 
Gold mining was now abandoned for something more 
reliable, though the determination to go west still pre- 
vailed. A careful consideration of various prospects did 
not cause a change of plans. Consequently our subject, 
after an overland journey via. Chicago, lowa City, Des 
Moines and Ft. Dodge, arrived on Dec. the Ist, 1856, at 
Sioux City, la., a frontier settlement on the very edge of 
civilization. This early arrival makes Mr. Charles one 
of the oldest settlers in the city or county, now living. 
Before his first winter in Sioux City had passed he 
crossed over into Nebraska and took up a claim. From 
this claim he cut and sold enough cord-wood to buy him- 
self a surveyor’s outfit. With this equipment he started 
in the spring of 1857 up the Missouri river to locate a 
townsite for a party from Ohio. This was done success- 
fully, the town, now St. Helena, Cedar Co., Neb., being 
then named Opechee. The following three years were 
spent in the real estate business, varied to a considerable 
extent by surveying. 
