Cheryl Anne Stapp
Hucksters and Scalawags
Families who trundled overland in covered wagons during the 1840s, hoping to build a better life in the West, didn’t always know to be...
California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Sep 14
- 2 min
Overland in Covered Wagons
What made some pioneer wagon trains successful, and others not? Partly luck, of course. But more than that, good fortune turned on the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 30
- 4 min
A Remarkable Life
She was a woman of remarkable qualities; a woman who rose from being an uneducated young bride going west in a covered wagon in 1844, to...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 23
- 3 min
Haunted by Tragedy
Her real name was Meriam but everyone called her Mary. She was a Donner Party survivor, fifteen when she was rescued from a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 16
- 2 min
Her Fight for Education
Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood was the capable, determined 19th century woman who paved the way for desegregated education for children of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 9
- 3 min
An Ordinary Woman
Teenaged Eliza Marshall emigrated with her family from England to the United States in 1839. They settled in Pawtucket, in the section of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jan 19
- 2 min
The Luckless Gold Discoverer
On a chilly winter day 174 years ago this month, a construction site foreman named James Marshall picked up a few small flakes of gold...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Dec 22, 2021
- 3 min
Naughty or Nice? Santa's Legend
The Americans who trekked to California in covered wagons made that arduous journey because they wanted to find a better life for...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 20, 2021
- 2 min
Quilting: A Frontier Social Event
Quilt making in the nineteenth century was more than just the home-crafted production of usable warm bedding: it was more often than not...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 25, 2021
- 2 min
Dining at an Outback Outpost
In August 1839, after several days of sailing upstream on the Sacramento River, a Swiss citizen named John Sutter arrived in the...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 18, 2021
- 2 min
Golden State Cheese
There is no doubt that Americans have a passion for cheese: in snacks, sandwiches and main dishes. Why, Crayola even named one of its...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Aug 11, 2021
- 2 min
The Sloughhouse Graveyard
Jared Sheldon, a carpenter by trade, officially received a Mexican land grant of 22,130 acres along the Cosumnes River in 1844—in payment...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Jun 9, 2021
- 1 min
Historical Destinations
Might you be planning a summer road trip, now that California’s Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted? If so, don’t miss stopping in at...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 26, 2021
- 3 min
Bayley's Grand Dream
The palatial hotel that A. J. Bayley built long ago in California’s gold country still stands, though it’s empty now, and encircled by a...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Apr 14, 2021
- 2 min
Bad Odds for Bachelors
Nineteenth century singles had limited ways in which to meet someone to marry, especially those singles who lived in rural areas. This...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 31, 2021
- 3 min
Virginia Reed Murphy
Virginia Reed was twelve when her parents and younger siblings set out for California from their Illinois home in April 1846, traveling...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 24, 2021
- 3 min
Dame Shirley's Gold Mine
Praised as the most delightful first-person account of California’s gold mines, The Shirley Letters is a collection of 23 letters written...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 17, 2021
- 3 min
Margaret Frink, Pioneer Housewife
In the spring of 1850—bedazzled by sensational reports coming back from the California gold fields—Margaret and Ledyard Frink excitedly...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 10, 2021
- 3 min
Rachel Larkin, Diplomat's Wife
Twenty-four–year-old Rachel Hobson Holmes boarded the trading vessel Newcastle out of Boston in September 1831. She was sailing for...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Mar 3, 2021
- 3 min
Reformer Eliza Farnham
In her own lifetime Eliza Farnham was nationally known as an author, and as an exceptional woman on the leading edge of several social...
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