Category Archives: Luzena Stanley Wilson

After two or three days Luzena and Mason Wilson sold their oxen for six hundred dollars and bought a hotel. Whatever you may picture as a hotel in 1849 Sacramento, your imagination exceeds the reality. The hotel we bought consisted … Continue reading →

Luzena Wilson got up on her first day in Sacramento and went right to work. There was no time to lose. There was money to be made feeding hungry miners. There was no credit in ’49 for men, but I … Continue reading →

Luzena Wilson finally made it to the crowded tent city around Sacramento. There she encountered men who were lonesome for the comforts of home. It was almost dusk of the last day of September, 1849, that we reached the end … Continue reading →

Nothing but actual experience will give one an idea of the plodding, unvarying monotony, the vexations, the exhaustive energy, the throbs of hope, the depths of despair, through which we lived. Day after day, week after week, we went through … Continue reading →

In honor of Women’s History Month, I am going to recycle a series of posts I did five years ago, with a bit of expansion and augmentation. These are the adventures of Luzena Stanley Wilson, overland pioneer. Her account is … Continue reading →

It’s no wonder that Luzena was amazed when a miner offered her a $5 gold piece, “ma’am, for them biscuit.” According to Measuring Worth, $5 in 1849 was worth at least $157 dollars. A man might work a week for … Continue reading →