My great-grandfather, b.1832 in Brum, took it into his head at the age of 19 or so, to travel to the other side of the moon (or, rather, its equivalent in around 1851, which was Gold Rush California). Much about his time there is unknown but he had more sense than to dig and, we believe, had a shop there, possibly an ironmongers. All in a place called Oroville (City of Gold) in the Sacramento Valley, a thriving town which a couple of years previously had been nothing but scrubland. Amongst much else that fascinates me is exactly how he got there in those days before the transcontinental railroad and the Panama Canal. Unlike a number of those new towns, Oroville survived the departure of the miners to pastures new, such as Nevada, and thrives to this day.
What we do have is documentary evidence of his decision to return to Europe in October 1859 and the regret expressed by members of the local community about his departure. Why the decision? He turns up again, opening a shop in the North of England and getting married in February 1860. A quick mover or was it a sort of arranged marriage? His grandson, my father, knew him, but I never did - he died 30 years before I was born. His own son followed in his footsteps but only as far as Florida and the South where he helped to build a railroad before, like his dad, eventually returning and settling down to a life in Brum. What memories those two must have had and IF ONLY they had kept a journal or jotted down their experiences in later life!
My own father always felt that he would have been expected to follow the tradition "to make a man out of him"; but he had an appointment to keep on the Western Front in 1918. He had to wait until 1935 to see the USA but by then it was with the help of Cunard.
Chris
