Edited with an Introduction and Notes,
By R. W. G. VAIL
Librarian of
The Minnesota Historical Society
THE CADMUS BOOK SHOP
NEW YORK
Press
STANDARD BOOK COMPANY
Manchester, N. H.
INTRODUCTION.
Several years ago I had the good fortune to find, in the lumber and rubbish of a storeroom, this little journal. A small leather-backed notebook, it had lain unnoticed and forgotten for more than half a century in the author's old homestead.
The original manuscript is written in a 4 by 6-inch notebook, bound in boards. It contains 180 pages of text, with pressed western flowers and plants pasted on the five fly-leaves at the end.
Mr. William Smith, our author's father, came from Gloucestershire, England, in 1831 and settled on a farm (now owned by his grandson, George Smith) just west of the village of Victor, N. Y. For several years Mr. Smith's sons, James and Charles W., both helped him on the farm, but eventually the latter decided to become a printer and so obtained a position in the neighboring village of Canandaigua.
At the time of the discovery of gold in California, Mr. C. W. Smith[1] had been for several years on the staff of the Ontario Messenger, which perhaps accounts for the interesting and newsy style in which his journal is written. Certain it is that he showed more than usual ability and training in narrating the experiences of the overland journey and especially in painting a vivid picture of the prairies, the rivers and mountains, the rocks and the flowers.