Rounded “The Horn.”
Vanburen Crompton, of Allen Dale, Ill., is one of the few men living who went to the California gold fields by way of “the Horn.” Most of the emigrants went overland by wagon, enduring many hardships. Mr. Crompton, then a young man, with two companions chose the water route. Taking a boat at New Orleans, they followed along the Mexican and South American coast, rounding Cape Horn, and then up the western coast, to San Francisco. The ships in that day were slow, and it required many weeks to make the journey. Thousands of men were called westward by the lure of gold, but only a comparatively small number found riches. Mr. Crompton was among the unlucky ones, and returned home after six years. He now lives on the farm on which he was born, and in one of the first frame houses erected in southern Illinois. In the early days there was a fort near the farm, a refuge from the Indians.