This simple narrative journal was written at Caņon Creek in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, in the middle of December, 1852, by Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell, who, with her husband, Lloyd Frizzell, and their four sons, set out on April 14th, of that year, from their unnamed home, not far from Ewington, Effingham County, Illinois, on the upper reaches of the Little Wabash River, on an overland journey to California. The journal records her observations and experiences from the Little Wabash, across Illinois and Missouri, to St. Louis and St. Joseph, and over the St. Joseph and Oregon Trails to the Pacific Springs, in Fremont County, Wyoming. Here, at the continental divide and at the halfway point of her journey, the journal ends, on June 26th, or the seventy-fourth day out.
, & hilly, many of the towns are small & uninteresting, but there are some, though not large which do a great deal of business. The scenery is quite monotonous.
[April 27--14th day] Passed the wreck of the steamer Luda,[17] which was blown up a short time since, it was a sad sight; for nearly 200 hundred lives were lost by that fatal accident, & the most of them I was told were for California. Men were at work digging from the hulk (which was nearly all that was left, so great was the explosion) such articles as were of value, or to ascertain if there were any dead bodies, to give them burial. I suppose they had found many for they had a line on which was hung promiscuously men, women, & children's clothes, it made ones heart ache to look uppon such a sight, but what must be the feelings of those who should recognize amidst those wet & muddy articles, some well known garment, of relative or friend, whose body in death lies sleeping beneath the turbulent waters & sands, of the Mi
