Main Content
It was given at Manti, Utah, in 1886 and stands as evidence 9f his experience in California. Part of this declaration reads:
..."from (Keokuk, Iowa), in 1849 I went to California via New Orleans and the Isthmus, sailing on the ship "Charleston" from Panama to San Francisco, reaching that place in January 1850." (Used by permission of Bancroft Library)
The streamer going down the Mississippi River was overcrowded and he slept whenever and wherever he could. The ship from New Orleans to Chagres was also overcrowded. Food was passed out to the passengers who sat on the deck to eat it. At Chagres the condition worsened. It seemed that half of the world was there. The crowd milled and thrashed around, trying to find food, water and transportation to Panama on the opposite shore of the Isthmus. Thousands of people, women included, found themselves with possessions which could not possibly be transported to Panama. These articles were either sold for a pittance or put in storage, where they were usually stolen by the natives who flocked to the docks to find work. Some of the natives brought burros, which they rented out; some brought hammocks, in which they carried patrons and their possessions. However, most of the gold seekers walked from Chagres to Panama. Hundreds lost their lives on the boats coming to Chagres and were 11dumped" into the ocean; many contracted tropical diseases prevalent in this hot jungle climate, and died. The food was unsanitary and the water impure. William H. Folsom wondered if his senses had left him when he decided to make such a journey, but having come this far, he felt bound to fill his part of the contract which he had made with Mr. Hughes. He ate and drank as carefully and sparingly as possible, hoping that conditions in Panama City would be better. In Panama he found the crowd larger and more vicious than at Chagres, but he was able to get on a boat for San Francisco. If a man found standing room on a vessel going to San Francisco, he considered himself very fortunate; hence Folsom was exhausted from 1ack'of food and rest by the time he reached that port. There is a record of a boat named "Charleston" reaching San Francisco harbor when Folsom said it did, but after reviewing the condition under which it sailed, one can understand why there is no passenger list available. Webster gives the definition of pandemonium as "a place of abode of all demons." This very well sums up Folsom's thoughts concerning San Francisco at the time of his arrival.
Referring again to the Bancroft document:
"I went to Rough and Ready and went to mining, and from there I went to Coyote Diggings. And in the spring of (18)51 I helped to organize the Deer Creek Water Co. and we built a ditch nine miles long, I think one of the first enterprises of that kind in that section. I was one of the proprietors and Supt of the work. In the fall of (18)52, I returned to Keokuk and moved from there to Council Bluffs."
Our thanks is extended to Bancroft Library for preserving this document and also to Allen R. Ottley of the Sacramento Library for his untiring but futile efforts to find other records concerning William H. Folsom. A few ships kept records. Generally speaking, as soon as a man set foot on shore he was off to the diggings regardless of registration. Registration on deposits at the banks in San Francisco did not take place until after Folsom returned to his family; consequently there was no listing of him from that source. Bancroft Library accepts his declaration without questioning it.