Growing Up with California

By Jacob Wright Harlan

Before he had turned twenty years old, Jake Harlan had met the Donners before their disastrous journey, served under John C. Fremont (the Pathfinder) in California, owned a livery stable in San Francisco, opened a store to sell equipment to miners for the '49 Gold Rush, hit paydirt in the gold fields, and become a father.Before he turned twenty!That was just the beginning of Jake Harlan's life. Though he apologizes for offering this book as a "non-lettered man," we should be grateful that he wrote it. His story is the story of the early wild west and of California. It is exciting, well-written, colloquial, sad, and funny.On a return trip to California from the east, he saw Abraham Lincoln speak in the Illinois senate before Lincoln was known to the nation. On finding his mate for life, he writes:"Boy-like, I had fallen dead in love with one or both of those two Fowler girls. For a good while I didn't exactly know what was the matter with me. Just as General Grant says in his book, that when he was in the same fix, he by and by found out what was the matter with him, when he fell in love; so by and by I found out what was the matter with me, and I simplified my case by centering my affection upon one of them."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1519060114
• ISBN13: 9781519060112
• Release Date: November 2016
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"