Cheryl Anne Stapp
Outposts on the California Trail
The intrepid individuals who traveled 2,000 miles overland from the Missouri frontier to California in the 1840s had very few waystations...
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California's Olden Golden Days
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- May 3
- 2 min
Civilizing Influences
In 1849, California’s Gold Rush population, statewide, was 92% male. As reported in the Eastern press, the state of affairs in that...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Apr 26
- 1 min
The Blacksmiths
The mighty smith of folklore was the blacksmith, who worked with iron and steel and whose hammer wielded more force than his fellow...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Feb 1
- 4 min
The First Wagon Party
They are known as the Bartleson-Bidwell Party, or alternatively the Bidwell-Bartleson Party, the first organized group of emigrants to...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Nov 9, 2022
- 3 min
Questionable Circumstances
In the early years of the Gold Rush, the mining camps were terrorized by the bloody exploits of a ferocious bandit named Joaquin...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 26, 2022
- 4 min
History Lessons in Cemeteries
All Hallows Eve is next Sunday, when centuries-old pagan beliefs insist that ghosts and goblins haunt old graveyards at the Midnight...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 19, 2022
- 3 min
An Ordinary Pioneer
Does a life filled with adventure and diverse occupations beget a physically vigorous, mentally alert old age? That was certainly true of...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Oct 12, 2022
- 3 min
Antiquated Hicksville Cemetery
In October we start thinking about trick-or-treaters, and making plans to deck our porches with jack-o-lanterns and other Halloween...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Sep 28, 2022
- 3 min
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...
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Cheryl Anne Stapp
- Sep 14, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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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