Buraker, Ambrose MAGA © 2000-2007
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES

Virginia, Ill.

By: J. N. Gridley

Printed by the Enquirer
1907

AMBROSE BURAKER.

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[The following sketch was dictated by Mr. Buraker and is here presented in his own language. N.J.G.]

I was born June 1st, 1830, near Marksville, Page Co., Virginia. My schooling was limited to about eighteen months. A log house furnished with crude wooden benches and desks, wooden ink wells and goose quill pens was the only school I ever attended. My parents owned a farm and tannery. I learned a little of both. My mother died when I was but fourteen years of age. At the age of sixteen I came to Illinois, county of Cass, where brother Phil Buraker, Uncle John Rosenberger and Gideon Koontz were located. Railroads being few I came (in company with Wesley Rosenberger and William White by stage and steamboat) landing at Beardstown, Ill., then each of us loaded our baggage on "Shank's ponies' and headed for Virginia, Illinois, where we rested over night then took a short cut across the wild prairies to Princeton and the house of Uncle John Rosenberger. Among my first acquaintances was that good old soul Uncle Jake Bergen.

In these early days I frequently tramped from Princeton to the Lancaster P.O., then called the "Walker House' kept by Richard Walker, who was at one time representative of Cass county. This was the principal point for voting in these days. Among the first most prominent doctors of Cass Co., at this time was Christy, of Philadelphia, Chandler, of Chandlerville, and Tate, of Virginia, later on the much appreciated doctor J. F. Snyder, of Virginia.

Jacob Strawn was the great cattle king of the western country. His good advice was "when you wake up in the morning don't roll over but roll out." The rival religions were Old Baptists and Methodists. The Baptist had for their champions Billy Crow and Cyrus Wright, the Methodists Peter Cartwright, Jimmy Wyatt, Jerry Mitchell and Sam Sinclair. At these times camp meetings were quite common but finally Peter Cartwright, the leader, admitted that the "devil had beaten him: and thought best to stop them. I knew him as one of, if not the greatest preacher of the west, a peculiar character because of his odd statements and ways of expressing them. The religion of those early days was somewhat different from that of the present day. Seekers for it were led to a mourner's bench where they frequently knelt for hours, then came loud singing, shouting, praying, hand-shaking and often falling together in heaps upon the ground or floor. At Harmony log schoolhouse seated upon a slab bench I have listened to Uncle Jimmy Wyatt and others; have also listened to Uncle billy Crow at the Old Baptist church near Yatesville, Ill., and took notice that Julius Elmore made numerous nods as the long sermon was continued without any regard to fatigue or time. The roads of Illinois were then a bee line across the prairies. I have helped to chase deer on the horse back over the prairie where Ashland now stands. Have stood hours on the long prairie grass listening to Jim Judy (now Col. Judy) crying of the sale of lots in what is now the city of Ashland, have heard Henry Phillips and Henry Savage debate on politics. On my first arrival there was yet some land to enter at $1� per acre. Archibald Job had timber land that he could have sold at $25.00 per acre and purchased the fine prairie land around him at $3.00 per acre. In the fall of �48 the gold fever took hold of me and many others. With the aid of my brother, Phil Buraker, I prepared an outfit and with others made ready to go to California. Quite a number of us met together at Virginia, Ill., among them Thomas Deal, Wesley Rosenberger, John Yaple, High Maston and Lee Conover all now in their graves. Others who were fitted out to go was Squire Brady, Zirkle Robinson, Joe Robinson, Lou bunce, Mole Beard and others I cannot recall. Among those who fell in with us at Beardstown, Ill., was Richard Dutch. On the morning of March 26 we shouldered our long, slim hickory poles with lash about equal in length (12 to 14 feet long with buckskin cracker attached) climbed on our wagons and started our long team of oxen for the gold mines of California. Our first mishap was a miring down in quicksand of what is now the center of Beardstown. The Illinois river was high and we found great difficulty in reaching solid ground at Frederic. Driving leisurely along the line of Missouri and Iowa we passed through Alexander and later on arrived at the village of St. Joseph situated on what was at that time the boundary line of the U.S. From that on to California the country was claimed by the red man and supposed to be only a wilderness of trees and wild, rugged scenery.

After laying in a supply of food for our cattle or oxen at St. Joseph we crossed the Missouri River and wound our way through bottom lands which were then only a vast wilderness halting at the bluffs where dwelt the Indians. Here we camped for some two weeks waiting for the grass to become fit for food for our animals. We had formed a company of twenty-six wagons which we placed in a circle at night to corral our cattle. Acting as driver I was not expected or called upon to pick Buffalo chips or assist in the cooking. Breaking camp we passed on to Platt River where from the top of a high bluff we could look out over broad, beautiful bottom lands. Here we could count upwards of five hundred wagons or more on their way to California. this low land began at Fort Kearnney, Neb. We followed the rivers and low lands mostly. Outside of being surprised by a severe blizzard and a stampede of buffaloes, which we thought for a time would destroy a Burlington Iowa wagon train, also great persecution from big mosquitoes and the gaunt condition of our oxen from lack of sustenance while crossing barren sandy stretches of land or desert our trip was an enjoyable one. We were not molested by the Indians although we saw many bands of them, their bodies being decorated with war paint, feathers and gaudy attire. We crossed the Rocky Mountains with a gradual ascent and descent following the Sierra Nevada whose sides were very steep and rugged the descent being almost perpendicular. From these mountains we entered the village of Hangtown where we made our first gold diggings. Arrived there Sept. 25.

The state of California was then a lawless state, no assessor or collector. Mining laws were 16 feet square to each man, earning from $16.00 to $24.00 per day. Stockton which we found as a city of tents in one year became a city of buildings. San Francisco was a city of gamblers. The climate was pleasant and mild, so warm that we slept out of doors with out feeling any discomforts from it.

During my sojourn of two years in the rocky, rugged mining districts of California, I became separated from my mates, later on falling in with Michael Whittlinger, who is still living near Ashland, Illinois. We mined together the last six months returning, by water mostly, to Illinois, March 26, 1851. Reward for my hard labor and daring adventure was $2000. I remained in Illinois but a short time going on to the state of Virginia, my father's home. At this time I was but 21 years old. In one year I returned again to Illinois passing through Springfield when lots were worth $400 about the square. Aug. 3, 1854 was married to Margarette I. Stout, daughter of Philemon Stout then living on Little Indian creek.

Those days cattle were driven on foot to New York market. I farmed some, traded also in cattle ad hogs running a cattle pump (my own and Joe Black's invention) for seven years. Subsequently I followed the meat business about twenty years. Came to Memphis, Mo., in 1892, have a farm near the city and a good home within the corporation.

I am seventy-five years old my health fairly good, but two children living. My religion is: "Learn the laws of Nature and live up to them."


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