Reminiscences of John H. Charles. 33 



four boys and two girls. lu May, 1826, when I was four 

 months old, my father moved from Pennsylvania to 

 Mifflin Township, Eichmond County, Ohio. A little 

 later a shifting of county boundary lines threw my 

 father's farm into Ashland County. This farm is still in 

 the family. One of my sisters, Mrs. Ben J. Urban,i now 

 lives upon it [1904]. It is located about nine miles east 

 of the city of Mansfield, Ohio. 



I lived on this farm until I was twenty-four years of 

 age. The first fifteen years were uneventful. At fifteen 

 I began to learn the trade of a carpenter and joiner, at 

 which I worked most of the time during the summer 

 months until I was twenty-four. For four or five win- 

 ters I taught school. For this employment I received 

 during the first year eleven dollars a month and 

 "boarded around." When I quit teaching I was receiy- 

 ing twenty dollars a month, the highest wages paid in 

 Ashland County at that time. 



FIRST TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 



In the spring of 1850 the news of the discovery of 

 gold in California reached our place. I, as well as many 

 others, caught the "gold fever." Being a strong young- 

 man, and in my prime, I soon made up my mind to go. 

 My folks were not much in favor of my plan. They, 

 however, made no objection to my departure, though 

 they saw me go with great anxiety. It was on the 13th 

 day of March, 1850, that I left the old home for the far 

 West. I went by rail from Mansfield, in an adjoining- 

 county, to Sandusky City, where I stopped over night. 

 Next day I went by rail to Cincinnati, where I took pass- 

 age on the Yorktown, a large steamer commanded by 

 Captain Haldeman, for St. Louis. The trip down the 

 Ohio and up the Mississippi rivers took us ten days. 

 While in St. Louis I stopped at the Missouri Hotel, 

 which a gentleman who was waiting for passengers on 

 the levee said was the "cheapest dollar a day house in 

 the town." 



I left St, Louis on the steamer El Paso and went up 

 the Missouri river as far as Liberty Landing,^ from which 



I 1. Mrs. Urban died October 12th, 1906, after this article had 



gone to the printers. 



2. In western Missouri, just south of the town of Liberty and a 

 little east of Kansas City. 



