Seventy Years on the Frontier

Name: Seventy Years on the Frontier
Author: Majors, Alexander

Majors, Alexander

Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)

After many desert wanderings and untold suffering, they at last struck a
low pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and emerged suddenly into the
Santa Clara Valley, which was covered with grass and wild oats and
flowers, with thousands of fat cattle feeding, a perfect paradise to
those famished skeletons of men. There were thirty-four of the party who
lived to reach that valley, and every one shed tears of joy at the sight
of the glorious vision spread before them and the suddenness of their
deliverance.

The boys shot five head of the cattle, and were eating the raw flesh and
fat when the ranch Indians, hearing the firing, came down with all the
shooting irons they could muster, but seeing the helpless condition of
the party, they rode back to headquarters and reported to Francisco, the
Spaniard who owned the ranch and cattle. He came down and invited them
to camp in a grove near his home, bade them welcome, and furnished the
party with meat, milk, grain, and everything they needed, and kept them
until they were recruited and able to go on their way. Verily, he was a
good Samaritan. They were strangers, and he took them in; hungry, and he
fed them; thirsty, and he gave them drink. In the grand summing up of
all things, may the noble Francisco be rewarded a thousandfold.

They reached the Santa Clara Valley the 4th of February, 1850, and on
that day each year they celebrate their deliverance by a reunion, where
in pleasant companionship and around the festive board they recount
reminiscences of the past, and live over again those scenes, when young
and hopeful, they lived and suffered together.

There are but eleven of the survivors of that party alive to-day, and
these are widely scattered east of the Rocky Mountains and on the
Pacific Slope. Some are old men, too feeble to travel, and can only be
present in spirit and by letter at the annual reunions. Gladly would
every Jayhawker welcome one and all of that band, bound together by ties
of suffering in a bond of brotherhood which naught but death can sever.

The names and residences of the original party are as follows:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Seventy Years on the FrontierMajors, Alexander

History

Seventy Years on the Frontier

Majors, Alexander

Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)

After many desert wanderings and untold suffering, they at last struck a
low pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and emerged suddenly into the
Santa Clara Valley, which was covered with grass and wild oats and
flowers, with thousands of fat cattle feeding, a perfect paradise to
those famished skeletons of men. There were thirty-four of the party who
lived to reach that valley, and every one shed tears of joy at the sight
of the glorious vision spread before them and the suddenness of their
deliverance.

The boys shot five head of the cattle, and were eating the raw flesh and
fat when the ranch Indians, hearing the firing, came down with all the
shooting irons they could muster, but seeing the helpless condition of
the party, they rode back to headquarters and reported to Francisco, the
Spaniard who owned the ranch and cattle. He came down and invited them
to camp in a grove near his home, bade them welcome, and furnished the
party with meat, milk, grain, and everything they needed, and kept them
until they were recruited and able to go on their way. Verily, he was a
good Samaritan. They were strangers, and he took them in; hungry, and he
fed them; thirsty, and he gave them drink. In the grand summing up of
all things, may the noble Francisco be rewarded a thousandfold.

They reached the Santa Clara Valley the 4th of February, 1850, and on
that day each year they celebrate their deliverance by a reunion, where
in pleasant companionship and around the festive board they recount
reminiscences of the past, and live over again those scenes, when young
and hopeful, they lived and suffered together.

There are but eleven of the survivors of that party alive to-day, and
these are widely scattered east of the Rocky Mountains and on the
Pacific Slope. Some are old men, too feeble to travel, and can only be
present in spirit and by letter at the annual reunions. Gladly would
every Jayhawker welcome one and all of that band, bound together by ties
of suffering in a bond of brotherhood which naught but death can sever.

The names and residences of the original party are as follows:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Seventy Years on the Frontier

Seventy Years on the Frontier

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