The Far Western frontier

Born in Aurora, New York, Alonzo Delano (1806-1874) moved on to the Midwest as a teenager. July 1848 found him a consumptive Ottawa, Illinois, storekeeper, and he joined a local California Company. He remained in the West after the Gold Rush, winning fame as an early California humorist. Life on the plains and among the diggings (1857) is based largely on letters from Delano published in Ottawa and New Orleans newspapers of the day (see Alonzo Delano's California correspondence ). Covering the period April 1849-August 1852, he discusses his voyage to St. Joseph and an overland journey to California; sojourns in Sacramento, Marysville, and San Francisco; and experiences as a storekeeper at Mud Hill, Stingtown, Gold Lake, and Grass Valley. Other topics include quartz mining, crime and vigilantism, and real estate investment.

John Ross Browne (1817-1875) of Kentucky, the official reporter for the California State Constitutional Convention of September-October 1849, came to California in 1849 as an employee of the government revenue service. He traveled widely in the next two decades before settling down in Oakland. Report of the debates of the Convention of California (1850) comprises the official records of the convention. Browne had been a shorthand reporter for the U.S. Senate before coming west, and he provides transcripts of the proclamation calling the convention, proceedings of the convention, text of the state constitution adopted by the delegates, and official correspondence regarding the convention and the institution of state government under that constitution.