A "49er"

Sandy Sumner

An obit published in a California paper states that “in Santa Maragrita California on June 1, 1906, Sandy S Sumner, a native of Indiana, aged 85 years died.”

So, what does this person have to do with Lawrence County? Sandy’s father was Benjamin Sumner, an early pioneer in 1817 in what would become Lawrence County. . . . Illinois.  (Sandy was born in Illinois, not Indiana.) The town of Sumner is named after Benjamin Sumner. Two of Benjamin’s sons would set out for California to seek gold.

Sandy Sumner was born to Benjamin Sumner and his wife in 1820 (November 28) in Christy Township in what was then Edwards County, now Lawrence County, Illinois. Illinois had been a state for only two years. Sandy married Nancy Perrigen in 1847 (March 22) in Lawrence County. They had a daughter and two sons before the 1850 census.

The year their first child was born, a man named James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, California. The stories about gold in the Territory of California spread quickly to the Midwest, including Sumner, Illinois. California statehood followed and, in that year, 1850, Sandy and Simeon Sumner, a half-brother eight years younger, were among the 80,000 “49ers,” who began the long trail to the Union’s westernmost, 31st state. Their father Benjamin, for whom Sumner was named, loaned $150 to Sandy to outfit the trip.

These farm men from the prairies and lush forests of southern Illinois had no idea what they would encounter enroute. A British historian, Frank McLynn, quotes one of them who said they knew “California lay west and that was the extent of our knowledge.” McLynn writes: “Forsaking their farms, these first settlers headed into the unknown. They feared wandering lost in the mountains, drowning in mighty rivers or dying of thirst in the desert. Above all, they quaked at the prospect of whooping savages descending on the wagon train to kill and torture.” The emigrants slogged along at two miles per hour alongside their oxen for some 2,000 miles, coping with infections and diseases, sometimes without water and other times with putrid water.

They had reached Placerville, California on November 7, 1850, when the younger Sumner son, Simeon died; he was 22. Placerville, in El Dorado County, sits in the western shadows of the Sierras and was known originally as “Old Dry Diggin’s.” When the town prospered and consequently populated too quickly, lawlessness followed. Lawbreakers were hanged first one by one and then in pairs so that the settlement acquired another descriptive name, “Hang Town.”

Sandy returned to Sumner sometime in 1852. While here, he purchased a wagon and horses from his father. His dad gave Sandy some money toward the expenses that Sandy had incurred during the last sickness and burial of his brother Simeon. Sandy left his real estate in Benjamin’s name so that selling the property could be done without legal problems. Once all the ties to the Midwest were severed and the family had said their goodbyes to Sandy and Nancy’s families, Sandy, this time with his family, headed back along the trail to California. 

Once there, they settled first in Placerville where they had three more children, then moved near Sacramento where they had an additional three more children, and then settled in Atascadero in San Luis Obispo County where they added four more children to their family. 

Sandy Sumner was killed in a buggy accident driving down the hill near his farm, as his obit says, on June 1, 1906, at age 85 years. As a young man he had left his home in Lawrence County Illinois and headed off for the gold fields. He died a farmer and a fruit raiser in California, far away from the town that his father had named.