The Granite State and California Mining and Trading Company was organized in Boston in March, 1849, as a joint stock company, with a constitution and by-laws extremely strict and precise.
The above company numbered twenty-nine members, principally hale, hearty, strong men, who were then about to leave their homes and friends to seek their fortunes in the newly discovered gold mines of California. The names of these twenty-nine men were as follows:
Charles Hodgdon, Grovensor Allen, Dr. A. Haynes, John Lyon, Lafayette Allen, Samuel W. Gage, Joseph D. Gage, Thomas J. True, Alfred Williams, Cuthbert C. Barkley, Kimball Webster, Erastus Woodbury, James M. Butler, Alden B. Nutting, Benjamin Ellenwood, James W. Stewart, Jonathan Haynes, Charles W. Childs, Robert Thom, Jacob Morris, Austin W. Pinney, J. P. Hoyt, George Carlton, J. P. Lewis, Dr. Amos Batchelder and Edward Moore.
Ten of these men were from the town of Pelham, N. H., as follows: Capt. Joseph B. Gage, Samuel W. Gage, Joseph D. Gage, Dr. Amos Batchelder, George Carlton, James M. Butler, Austin W. Pinney, Robert Thom, Benjamin Ellenwood and Jacob Morris.
The majority of them were natives of Pelham and had always resided there as neighbors. Several of the others were from Boston, and a few from other towns of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Each member of the company was required to pay into the treasury the sum of three hundred dollars which, it was estimated, would be sufficient to furnish the necessary outfit and cover all traveling expenses.
It was the boast of the officers and many of the members that the Granite State Company would carry with them and introduce into California New England principles. Pelham was my native town and although my home at that time was in Hudson I was acquainted with the larger number of the members from Pelham previous to the organization of the company. With the exception of the Pelham members they were all strangers to me. I was twenty years of age on November 2, 1848, five months before we started.
The officers at the time of starting were: George W. Houston, President; Joseph B. Gage, Vice President; Edward Moore, Secretary; Calvin S. Fifield, Treasurer; besides a Board of Directors. Another company similar to our own had been organized in Boston and numbered about forty members and was called the Mount Washington Company. These two companies mutually agreed to travel in company until they should reach California.
The president of the last mentioned company, Captain Thing, having several years previous traveled across the country from Independence, Missouri, to Fort Hall and Oregon, in company with some of the men of the American Fur Company, agreed to pilot the Granite State Company through to California for five dollars each.
Some two or three weeks previous to the time of the starting of the two companies, Captain Thing and Lafayette F. Allen of Boston were selected to go to Independence, Mo., in advance of the two companies, with sufficient funds to purchase mules and cattle in numbers adequate to supply the needs of the two companies in their embarkation on the broad plains at such time as they should arrive at the above mentioned place.