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DAMIAN DE CALIDAD CONTRERAS -
International Genealogical Index / ME
Gender: Male Christening: 30 JAN 1818 San Antonio, Churintzio,
Michoacan, Mexico
DAMIAN CONTRERAS - International
Genealogical Index / ME
Gender: Male Marriage: 12 FEB 1838 Sayula, Jalisco, Mexico
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3.
DAMIAN CONTRERAS PEREZ -
International Genealogical Index / ME
Gender: Male Christening: 10 OCT 1840 Atotonilco El Alto,
Jalisco, Mexico |
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Arizona History
Early Yumans failed in trek to gold fields
BY FRANK LOVE
Feb 2, 2003
It's impossible to know exactly how many early Yuma residents
were first drawn west by the 1849 California gold rush because of
a lack of biographical documents. But despite the scarcity of
information, there is evidence that many early Yumans were gold
rush failures.
A little known fact about California's gold rush is that Mexicans,
not Americans, were the first to reach the diggings. Probably the
best known failed 49'er who settled in Yuma was Jose Maria
Redondo. He later became a territorial legislator and was mayor of
Yuma when he died in 1878.
Although he was the descendant of a distinguished Sonoran family,
Jose went with his father's family to the California diggings in
December of 1848. Sources available don't tell what kind of luck
the Redondo family had in California, but it must not have been
very good. Jose's father soon returned to Sonora while the son
brought his young family to Arizona in 1859. By then, he was
married to Piedad Contreras.
But gold didn't elude Jose Redondo forever. He was the first to
exploit the placer diggings at La Paz. Now a ghost town near
Ehrenberg, nothing remains there today, but his mining success
helped Redondo create a large ranch near Yuma in the late 1860's
and establish successful Yuma businesses in the 1870's.
Another prominent early Yuman who was a failed 49'er was William
Berry. Why Berry left his Pennsylvania home at 29 years of age for
Oregon in 1847 is unknown, but he only remained there a short
time. Upon hearing of the discovery of gold in California, he left
Oregon with a wagon train of 60 others bound for the mines. Upon
reaching the gold fields on the American River, Berry mined for a
time until he became ill from a malady reported to be
"intermittent fever." He left for San Francisco hoping to regain
his health. A second try at the gold fields followed which also
failed.
A study of California laws convinced Berry he could become an
attorney, and he practiced in Santa Barbara for a few years before
leaving for Prescott where he opened a gunsmith shop. When gold
was discovered at La Paz in Arizona soon afterward, he tried his
luck mining there without success. Upon learning that the first
Yuma newspaper, The Free Press, was for sale, Berry came here
where he bought the failed journal's equipment but refused to take
responsibility for the indebtedness of its proprietor. Berry
edited the Yuma newspaper until Dec. 30, 1875 when he sold it and
left town.
It is likely that Berry met future Yuman Hall Hanlon while mining
along the American River. Born in Maryland in 1823, Hanlon was
living in New Orleans when he learned of the discovery of gold in
California. Biographical sources don't tell how Hanlon got to the
diggings, but they do report that he soon became too sick with
asthma to continue mining.
Someone who had been through Yuma on the trip west told Hall about
the dry climate here, and he was a resident of the Colorado River
town by 1854. Quickly finding employment as a carpenter at Fort
Yuma, Hanlon lived here for a time where he served on the town
council.
Hanlon moved across the river in the early 1870's. He homesteaded
a ranch there which he sold years later to the California
Development Company so they could build a canal into the Imperial
Valley.
When Hanlon died in 1912, Yuma's Sun newspaper of July 19 paid
this tribute: "Mr. Hanlon was a quaint character. He had a great
fund of humor, a singular ready wit and a command of sparkling
language that always made a company merry when he was one of them.
Old timers love to repeat many of his comments."
Another Sonoran drawn north by the California gold rush was Pablo
Figueroa. Born in 1816 at Altar, Pablo's father took his family to
the gold diggings in Calaveras County, Calif. What luck they had
is no reported. It must have not been great because Pablo moved
his family to the Pot Holes gold diggings along the Colorado in
1860. Just north of Yuma, it was a mining camp near present-day
Laguna Dam.
It appears that Figueroa wasn't a very successful miner at Pot
Holes because he moved to Yuma in 1862. Figueroa was listed in the
1870 census as a Yuma merchant, but he had turned to farming by
1880. He died here is 1894.
Also from Sonora was Antonio Contreras. Born at Magdalena in 1830,
he migrated north in 1849 to try his luck searching for gold in
Amador County. What success he had is unknown, but he may have
been more successful than some other Yumans who migrated to the
gold fields. This is suggested by the 1870 census at Arizona City
which listed him as a stock trader with property valued at $5,500.
Only five other local residents owned that much property.
Among other early Yumans lured to the gold rush in California was
Andrew Jackson Keene from New York state and William Ankrim who
eventually became a Yuma ferryman. There were probably many
others, but information about them is scarce.
--
FRANK LOVE is a local historian.
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