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Enon Lanfear brought the Camels to Hogeye, but the camel story begins years earlier.
Enon’s story starts with his birth on Dec. 15, 1828, in Sempronius, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. According to “Find a Grave,” his father Deacon Asa Lanfear, 1793-1871, and his family first came to Illinois in 1835, settling in Homer Township, and buying property at the first land sale in Chicago. The first school in Homer Township was on Deacon Lanfear's farm. It was a stable that was used as a schoolhouse.
After Enon’s marriage to Sarah Louisa Beedy in 1849, they traveled to California by ox wagon. The following is quoted from a life sketch in the form of a letter dated Dec. 18, 1935, by Enon and Louisa Lanfear’s grandson, Vincent Wesley Lanfear. Vincent W. was, at that time, dean of men at the University of Pittsburgh. The letter is addressed to Vernallyn and Claude: “You asked about my Grandpa and Grandma Lanfear. I do not know birth and death dates, but Grandpa and Grandma went to California in 1849 by ox wagon, or I should say on a wagon train. If you ever watch 'Wagon Train' on television, you will get a good idea of the life on such a trip as Grandpa told it. It was in the gold rush. They were piloted by Kit Carson.”
Kit (Christopher Houston) Carson was born on Dec. 24, 1809, in Richmond, Kentucky. The Lanfears were fortunate to be in a wagon train led by the experienced Carson. Quoted from the National Park Service, “The weather on the prairie that spring was horrible, with persistent rain, hailstorms, gales. Mud was deep, rivers in flood. … Only a few … reached the gold fields; the others broke down along the road.”
According to the letter from Vincent W. Lanfear, “On the way to California, they (Enon and Sarah Louisa) took cows along for milk and even had to use butter for axle grease. When Indians attacked, they put the wagons in a big circle with the stock in the center. The women loaded the muzzle-load guns, and the men did the shooting. They also killed game for food so their supplies would not run out. I suppose you know that Grandpa’s name was Enon and Grandma’s Louisa.”
The Lanfears were drawn by the gold rush that began in early 1848 at Sutter’s Mill on the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Throughout 1849, 49ers with gold fever borrowed money, mortgaged their property or spent their life savings to seek their fortunes. According to “California Gold Rush,” by History.com, the non-native population swelled by the end of 1849 from 1,000 to 100,000. They traveled across the mountains and deserts or by sea. A total of $2 billion worth of the precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush. Women who were left behind had to run farms and businesses and care for their children alone. Gold-mining towns sprang up bringing brothels, saloons, gamblers and violence. By the end of the decade, California’s population had reached 380,000.
According to Oisin Curran in history, http://www.howstuffworks.com, “For the indigenous peoples who lived there, it was an unmitigated disaster. Thousands of new immigrants pushed the native populations off their land, depriving them of their hunting grounds. Violent confrontations broke out and the newcomers slaughtered as many as 16,000 of California’s first people in what amounted to state-sanctioned genocide.”
According to the same site, few were able to hold on to their new-found wealth. The ones who profited in the long run were the merchants and individuals like George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst, who mined for quartz and silver. Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea and a Frenchman named Toissaint Charbonneau, ran a hotel. Levi Strauss sold their “waist-high coveralls” to the miners, lumberjacks and the farmers.
By 1852, Sutter would be bankrupt, his property overrun and his livestock stolen.
Not everyone found gold or was able to keep it, but the trip to California by the Lanfears wasn’t in vain. Enon Lanfear found his gold mine.
Charlene Hanson Jordan wrote the above narrative as the sixth of a weekly column. Her newest book, “Notes & Recollections, Post Oak Island & Elgin, Texas,” is available at the Elgin Depot Museum where exhibits, photographs and books on local history are also available. The museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. Watch for notices. Every Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m, “Notes & Recollections” may be purchased from the Niswanders at the Elgin Farmers Market in Veterans Memorial Park. The book is also available at the Elgin Courier office, 105 N. Main St. in Elgin or 512-285-3333 during business hours all week, or from Charlene directly at [email protected] or 512-856-2562.
