Pleasants, William J.:

$15,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

TWICE ACROSS THE PLAINS 1849...1856. A rare "modern overland," with most copies destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. It is one of the very few narratives of 1849 Gold Rush travel that mentions African-American travellers, one of whom became a victim of Joaquin Murrieta. William Pleasants made his first trip across the Great Plains as a boy with his family in 1849, striking out for California from Missouri during the Gold Rush. In 1856 he returned to Missouri by way of Panama to fetch the rest of his family to California, to which he travelled overland a second time. His tale includes stories of mining the California gold fields and the struggle of early settlers. On the 1849 overland journey the party began along the old Santa Fe Trail before crossing to the Platte River Road. They were beset by cholera, which thrived in the wet weather, and took the life of "master of transportation" John Lane, among others. In 1856, Pleasants was sent by his father to Missouri to bring the rest of his family to California, a trip funded by $1500 in gold dust. On the latter journey west his group was confronted by hostile Indians, and Pleasants implies that the Mormons encouraged native tribes in hostilities against non-Mormon travellers. The text concludes with a roster of the members of the 1849 and 1856 wagon trains, and Pleasants notes that five of the 1849 travellers were African American, including Amos and Sam Kusick (or Kusic), "Old Uncle Dick" Sloan, John Arnett,

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