Across the Plains to California in 1852: Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell

This simple narrative journal was written at Cañon Creek in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, in the middle of December, 1852, by Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell, who, with her husband, Lloyd Frizzell, and their four sons, set out on April 14th, of that year, from their unnamed home, not far from Ewington, Effingham County, Illinois, on the upper reaches of the Little Wabash River, on an overland journey to California. The journal records her observations and experiences from the Little Wabash, across Illinois and Missouri, to St. Louis and St. Joseph, and over the St. Joseph and Oregon Trails to the Pacific Springs, in Fremont County, Wyoming. Here, at the continental divide and at the halfway point of her journey, the journal ends, on June 26th, or the seventy-fourth day out. It was nearly seven months later, in her snowbound quarters of the Sierra Nevadas, that she busied herself with its composition from notes she had kept by the way, enlivened by her memory.

Written on inner covers or flyleaves are several names, which may be of value for future identification. They are: John G. Harness, 1852; Nancy Varnyan; G. W. Catron; Wm. Malone; Orin Anderson and T. Alexander. Nothing has been discovered of the personal history of this Frizzell family. The patronymic, however, is found at an early period in New England.
In 1859, Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren, of the corps of topographical engineers, U. S. A., issued a Memoir and map of the exploring expeditions in the West, from 1800 to 1857, and an epitome thereof forms a part of volume 1 of Wheeler's Report , appendix F, of the United States Geographical Surveys west of the one hundredth meridian (Washington, 1889). Among the narratives of those who, in the main, travelled the route covered by Mrs. Frizzell, the earliest is the journal of Robert Stuart, 1812, of which The New York Public Library has a complete typewritten transcript, made from the original manuscript in 1908. This journey was begun in June, 1812, at Astoria, and ended at the Ohio. It was undertaken by representatives of the Pacific Fur Company. The next important expedition to the Rocky Mountains was made by Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, 1832-1836, of which we have the record in Washington Irving's The Rocky Mountains , first published in 1837, in two volumes. In 1835, Colonel, afterwards General Henry Dodge, covered a part of the way en route from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1842, J. C. Frémont traversed the Plains on his first expedition, ending in the Wind River Mountains, and in 1843-1844, he went over much of the same ground. Joel Palmer's journal of his travels over the Rocky Mountains, in 1845-1846, was printed in 1852, and has been edited as a part of Thwaites's Early Western Travels . Among the California pioneers, who went over the route in the mad rush of 1849, was Amasa Delano, who wrote an illuminating journal, published as Life on the Plains , in 1854. These and many other publications have been consulted in editing the Frizzell journal.