McLean County History & Genealogy News
By Euleen Rickard
California history records that Nancy Kelsey was the first white woman to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California and she is credited with making the Bear Flag that was raised by American inhabitants at Sonoma in 1846. That event started the process that turned California from a Mexican province into a state. It was just three years before the big “Gold Rush”
In his book “When The Great Spirit Died”, William B. Secrest, a California historian, wrote that “Nancy’s husband Ben Kelsey and his brother-in-law Andy so brutally exploited and tormented the peaceful Indians who lived and worked their ranches that they rose up in rebellion and killed Andy and another rancher.” The revenge by Ben Kelsey and his vigilantes resulted in many Indian deaths. The violence was so great a detachment of American soldiers was called in to help put down the rebellion.
California in the Gold Rush era was a violent and dangerous place.
Thousands of gold seekers joined the 1849 frenzy for the precious metal, among them, were John Vickers and his son-in-law John Bender of Cross Roads, McLean County, Kentucky. Some “struck it rich” but many lost their lives. It may have been the violence and fear for their lives that prompted John Vickers and John Bender to abandon their search and return home.
Back home, his hometown was growing and although the east-west and north-south roads crossed there, John wanted to change the name of Cross Roads to Sacramento, the name of a beautiful city he had discovered in California. The people went along with him and so it was Sacramento Kentucky, the namesake of Sacramento, California.
The Fall 1981copy of Bluegrass Roots-Volume VIII Number 3 published by the Kentucky Genealogical Society, Inc. lists the California 1850 census and there were almost thirteen hundred names of former Kentuckians living in California at that time. The census does not record the location in Kentucky that they migrated from but does give many surnames familiar to McLean County, Austin, Bell, Riley, Robertson, Moore, Ray and others.
Through the years McLean Countians have migrated west, many settling and living their life time in California. Ray Martin and his wife migrated there from Sacramento, Kentucky. In 1945 my friends, Elston and Jean Andrew Yeaden, and his brother Hubert left Island and settled in San Pedro, California. Our vice president Helen Anderson lived in California for a short time. Her brother Roy Hill and his wife Lois Quisenberry both of Sacramento settled in Ventura. Their surviving children now live in Bakersfield, Auburn, Fremont and Ventura. Helen has an aunt who went there in the 1930s. As I have talked with people about McLean Countians who migrated west and settled in California, many have sent information. Julia Devine wrote that John Wesley Garst left Sacramento in the 1930s, settled in Ventura and for a while was a fireman for that city. Later, he built a wire line spooler and started his own company “Garst Wireline Service” in Ventura. His business serviced the oil industry with wire cable. It was very successful and remained good until the early 1960s when the oil industry in the area declined. He sold the business to a Los Angeles Company and then worked for the new company until he was seventy-five years old. He and his wife spent many years living in a log house built by his wife’s father in the 1920s. It was on a street named for the McLean county native, Garst Lane, Ojai, California.
In a letter from Addie (Coffman) Garst, a Sacramento native, she told of a cousin who had lived in Borrega Springs, California. It seems that many from McLean County migrated to California and stayed there.
Evidence of gold mines and stamp mills still exist along the Golden Chain Highway in California and the miner’s legacy is still there. However, most McLean County natives like Wesley Garst, found “gold” in other ways in their move to the Golden State of California.
If you are searching for California ancestors the Bluegrass Roots record may be helpful. The files of the museum will be open in the not too distant future.