Maxwell, George - letter

MAXWELL, ROOT

Posted By: Bill Rathbun (email)
Date: 3/6/2004 at 00:14:56

The Fairfield Journal, Wed., Mar. 13, 1912, Page 1, col. 6.

HEARD FROM LOST BROTHER

Mrs. A. C. Root of Beckwith Receives First Letter From Brother in 30 Years.

Mrs. A. C. Root of near Beckwith received a letter from her brother, George Maxwell, recently, whom she had not heard from for 30 years. George Maxwell left Iowa in the year of 1850 in company with a party from Indiana with ox teams when the gold craze was on in California, and his relatives here had never heard of him since.

An old letter dated 1859 reported him as in the employ of the government in engineering a wagon road across the mountains, then working on the north side of Mt. Hood, and was unsuccessful on account of the deep snows which were almost four feet deep. He was forced to return to camp after being without food for three days. He wrote that horse flesh tasted good to them. In his letter of 1859 he spoke of “It’s a habit on the coast by the time a man has rambled for almost a quarter of a century with the ups and downs and the excitement of the coast life that he almost forgets his boyhood days and friends and everyone else back East.”

Mr. Maxwell seems to have prospered in life and wrote a very entertaining letter back to his sister whom he has not seen for 60 years. She rejoices greatly to know that he is in the land of the living even if he is far away in Vancouver, Wash., and is hoping that she may have the privilege of seeing him once more before long.