Men--Vigilance Committee--Death of Mrs. Bennett.


CHAPTER XVII Mines and Mining--Adventures and Incidents of the Early
Days--The Pioneers, their Character and Influence--- Conclusion.

* * * * *


DEATH VALLEY IN '49

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PIONEER




CHAPTER I.


St. Albans, Vermont is near the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, and
only a short distance south of "Five-and-forty north degrees" which
separates the United States from Canada, and some sixty or seventy miles
from the great St. Lawrence River and the city of Montreal. Near here it
was, on April 6th, 1820, I was born, so the record says, and from this
point with wondering eyes of childhood I looked across the waters of the
narrow lake to the slopes of the Adirondack mountains in New York, green
as the hills of my own Green Mountain State.

The parents of my father were English people and lived near Hartford,
Connecticut, where he was born. While still a little boy he came with