Source:
Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield Co., Ohio.
by C. M. L. Wiseman
Publ. F. J. Heer Printing Co., Columbus, O.  1901

Transcribed by Sharon Wick

TO CALIFORNIA.

     THE FIRST OVERLAND EXPEDITION TO LEAVE LANCASTER, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

     IN the spring of 1852 Thomas Sturgeon and Samuel Crim , being then partners in the buying and selling of horses, purchased 100 horses for the California trade.
     They took with them 16 wagons and expected to fit out mule teams for each one at St. Joseph, Mo.  The trip to Cincinnati was over the pike via Circleville.  At Cincinnati the horses and equipment were shipped by steamer to St. Louis and St. Joseph, Mo.  They employed forty of the best young men in the county to go with them and take charge of the horses and teams.
     At St. Joseph they entered the savage Indian country and passed through what is now the fertile plains of Kansas and Nebraska, and after many months reached San Francisco, without the loss of a man and very little stock.
     We give herewith the names of the men who were members of the Crim & Sturgeon expedition.  Forty-eight winters have come and gone since 1852, and but few of the number remain.  Horatio Westlake resides in Columbus, Ohio.
     Horatio Westlake, Thomas A. Black, Albert Brown,
Joshua Stukey, Richard Miller, Sim Street, David
Brown, Lancaster.
     Robert McFarland, O. P. Courtright, Greenfield.
     Ed. Wilson, W. B. Wilson, W. H. Ijams, Richland.
     Samuel Thompson, William Thompson, Rushcreek.
     William Kuqua, David Ginger, A. R. Ginger, Berne.
     Solomon Ghaster, William Paul, Samuel Smetters, D. B. Miller, Liberty.
     George Watson, William Watson, Peter L. Geiger, David Weaver, Thomas Lamb, D. D. Wickliffe, Adam .Shane, Sol Brenneman, Walnut.
     Dan Walters, E. M. Walters, Pleasant.
     P. S. Julian, Madison.
     William Mallon, Wm. Jacobs, L. P. Foust, John Boyer, H. C. Mehorter, H. H. Hamlin, James Dallas, D. Alexander, Tarlton.
     About the same time John D. Jackson, John Cannon and Jonathan Rising left Lancaster for the coast via Panama.  Rising died on the steamer. He was a brother of Philip Rising.  But few of the Fairfield people who went to California — and there were hundreds — ever returned.