Remembering Tuolumne…

Remembering Tuolumne…

By Joseph Celentano, TCMM Historical Research Committee.

This year, 2004 is the Sesquicentennial year for Tuolumne. This means that 150 years ago, in 1854, the first Anglo family settled in this community, which we now know as Tuolumne. The area was populated for thousands of years by native peoples, referred to as the Miwok, or Me-Wuk, (meaning "the people").

Most everyone generally knows that a man by the name of Frank Summers (b.1826-d.1856) came to this area with his new wife and young daughter and found gold and new wealth. Because this year a celebration is planned in September, sponsored by the Tuolumne Park & Recreation District, it would be appropriate to go into extensive detail about the Summers Family. This will be a multi-part series, continued from month to month.

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The Summers Family - Part I

We begin with Samuel Summers (1796-1852) who was born in the State of Virginia. Samuel married Elizabeth McWherter (b. 1802). Samuel and Elizabeth had thirteen children, five boys and eight girls. They were:

Lee Ann (b. 1819);

George M. (1820-1992);

James William, (1821-1877);

Nancy M. (b. 1823);

Franklin "Frank" (1826-1856);

Jesse N. (1827-1890);

John "Jack" (1832-1905);

Katherine (b 1834);

Emily (Sarah?) (1835-1852);

Mary Frances (1835-1852);

Eliza G. (b. 1840);

Virginia "Jane" (b. 1842);

Belle (Isabelle) (b. 1845 in Missouri).

All the children except Belle were born in Kentucky.

One of the sons of Samuel and Elizabeth Summers, Frank Summers, married Elizabeth A. McGlacklin, who lived in Gentry County, Missouri. They had a daughter named Lee Ann, who was born in 1849. This is "our" Lee Ann Summers. Lee Ann was named after Frank Summers' eldest sister.

In 1850 Frank Summers decided to go to California (by himself) to visit his brothers, John, James and Dr. George Summers, who were already in California and participated in the gold rush of 1849. Frank booked passage aboard a ship taking the Cape Horn route and disembarking in San Francisco. He then went to the Shaws Flat area of the Mother Lode and was very successful in his search for gold.

In 1852, Frank Summers returns to Missouri to bring his wife Elizabeth and daughter Lee Ann and move permanently to California via the Overland Route, following the North Platte River, also known as the Oregon Trail.

In early 1852, just after the winter snows and the grass was tall enough for the large and strong oxen to feed on, a wagon train for the 2000-mile cross-country trip was made up of Missouri friends and neighbors, including Frank's father Samuel, his mother Elizabeth and the rest of their children. In May of 1852, they were on their way. Their oxen-drawn wagon train crossed the Missouri River by flat boat.

Then tragedy struck the Summers' family on the hot and dry alkali trail. Frank's younger sister, Emily (age 17) died the first month out. Frank's father Samuel (age 56) died in Nevada during the last month of the trip. As with the many thousands of deaths of the early pioneers on the Oregon Trail, many were wrapped in old, worn out blankets or quilts and placed in shallow graves, covered by rocks along the trail. There was no time to mourn your loss. You had to move on to the end of your rainbow, California.

The Summers' family left the Oregon Trail and traveled along the Humbolt River until they reached the Humbolt "Sink". They then took the Carson River route, which eventually led to old Hangtown (now Placerville).

In November of 1852 they reached Shaws Flat. It was a grueling six-month trip, which was normal for a group traveling at that time by the overland trail route. Frank, his wife and daughter, moved into a log cabin he constructed near Shaws Flat made from materials brought by Frank when he made his trip around the Horn two years earlier.

Two years pass and in the fall of 1854, Frank moved his family to an area 10 miles east of Sonora and took up squatters rights alongside the west bank of a small creek, named Turnback creek in 1853. The area at that time was considered part of Cherokee Camp, which was the first placer camp in the east belt of the Mother Lode. Frank built a log house with a dirt floor and a fireplace. It was a place to call home.

…..to be continued with Part II next month.

Research Sources: Georgia Kinney Bopp Family Genealogy Book "Summers Family in California" and Ruth Hansen Brown, both are descendents of Samuel and Elizabeth Summers.