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Finding aid of the Robert C. Laws Diary, 1852 - 1852
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Title: Robert C. Laws Diary, 1852 - 1852
Collection Size:
1 folder
Repository: The
Society of California Pioneers.
San Francisco, California 94107-1272
Abstract: The collection consists of the diary of Robert C. Laws who traveled overland from Ohio to California in 1852. Laws joins
a company in Missouri after his original party, the Buckey Emigrating Company, disbands. His diary provides details of the
trip, with description of the landscape, distance traveled, weather, Indians encountered, illnesses suffered and food eaten.
The diary covers the period of April 12 to August 25, 1852.
Physical location: Stored on-site at the Society of California Pioneers.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection is open by appointment for research.
Property rights reside with The Society of California Pioneers. All requests for permission to reproduce or publish must be
submitted in writing to the Librarian.
Robert C. Laws Diary, 1852 - 1852. The Society of California Pioneers.
Biography / Administrative History
Robert C. Laws was born June 14, 1830 near Cincinnati Ohio. He joined the Buckey Emigrating Company on April 21, 1852 and
traveled overland to California arriving sometime in the early fall with another company headed by Major Ormsby. He died
February 8, 1891.
| 1852/1852 | Robert C. Laws Diary |
Scope and Content of Collection
The Diary of Robert C. Laws provides details of his daily life and travel across the plains to California in 1852. Mr. Laws
begins his journey overland as a member of the Buckey Emigrating Party. Due to general dissatisfaction and the death of two
members of company from cholera outside of St. Joseph, Missouri the Buckey Emigrating Party disbanded. Laws joins a new company
headed to California that is led by Major Ormsby. It is a mixed company of a few women and children with the remainder of
the 33-person company being men. The diary gives daily accounts of the company's progress including weather, descriptions
of the places they stayed, the distance traveled, food eaten, and illnesses suffered. A number of the company die from these
illnesses that include measles and cholera. In a number of entries Laws notes that their company passes other parties that
did not complete the journey to California, but instead decided to return home. Supplies are often purchased from these parties.
Laws writes also about the great numbers of people traveling in the same direction as his party on the way to California and
his entry on June 3, 1852 gives a count of the numbers of wagons, men, women, children, horses, mules, oxen and sheep that
had passed on the road since the first of June. Diary entries also mention the territories that the company passes through
belonging to specific Indian tribes, such as the Sauk, the Iowa, the Pawnee, the Shawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Snake and
the Shoshone. The company crosses the Rocky Mountains and stays for a period in and near Salt Lake City where Laws notes details
about Mormon life in Utah including a description of the 5-year celebration of their arrival in the valley of the Great Salt
Lake. While there are many entries that detail the trials of the trail, towards the end of the diary there are a few that
describe disagreements with Major Ormsby and a fight between Laws and the company's cook. The diary ends August 30, 1852
with the company still some distance from their destination.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Pioneers -- California
Overland journeys to the Pacific
Buckey Emigrating Company
Laws, Robert C., 1830 -- 1891
Biographical File containing 3 typed transcriptions of Diary.