Customer Reviews

Buckeye in the Land of Gold: The Letters and Journal of William Dennison Bickham (American Trail Series, 19)

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If the truth be told, personal journals of the Old West can often be
dry narratives, best mined for their factual content. This work is
one of the rare exceptions - a highly entertaining and informative
book to read.

In 1850, at the age of 23, William Dennison Bickham set out from
Cincinnatti, Ohio to test his luck in the California goldfields. His
journey to San Francisco and his adventures in the American River
area of California were recounted in letters sent to the Cincinnatti

Gazette, for which he was a correspondent, and in a journal he kept
for the benefit of his sisters.

Bickham has a mature narrative style that draws one in until it
becomes difficult to put the book down. While the tales of his
adventures romp right along, his sensitivity and powers of
observation yields passages of descriptive beauty, providing the
reader with a view of a world long gone.

This adventurer's wry sense of humor, usually directed at himself,
spices the tale from start to end. His reminiscences are rich and
wide-ranging: fighting his (and his fellow passengers') corner for
decent food on the sea voyage to Panama; the hardship of living alone
at the "Blue Cabin" and mucking for gold, often finding as little
value as $1.40 per day; mending his own "unmentionables"; competing
in foot races and jumping contests; running Whig candidates for
office; experiencing the dreadful San Francisco fire of 1851; holding
the position of Customs Inspector for the Port of San Francisco.

This publication is enriched with contemporary drawings, maps, an
introduction, prologue, epilogue, notes, bibliography and index.

Congratulations are in order to Randall E. Ham for a very professional
job of editing. Thanks to his efforts, William Dennison Bickham speaks
again, and takes his readers on a wonderful journey through what must
have been a wonderful time in America.