Book Notes

(from the California HISTORIAN)

Death Valley in ’49
By William Lewis Manly
Edited by Leroy and Jean Johnson
Foreword by Patricia Nelson Limerick
Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA and Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA, 2001, 399 pages, paperback, $18.95, ISBN 1-890771-47-3

Reviewed by Mary-Ellen Jones
The Bancroft Library, Retired

The mention of Death Valley instantly brings to most minds clear images of intensely hot days, freezing nights and miles of shifting sand. It is perhaps California’s most widely-known geographic feature due in no small part to Death Valley in ’49, William Lewis Manly’s haunting chronicle of disaster, survival and heroism. Originally published in San Jose, California, in 1894, this powerful narrative has become one of the great classics of California literature.

William L. Manly was born in Vermont in 1820. His family migrated westward, eventually settling in Wisconsin. By 1845 he was hearing rumors of new opportunities farther west. He described his reaction as a sort of pioneer or western fever resulting from learning that good farm land was readily available in Oregon. In the winter of 1848, reports began to circulate that gold had been discovered in California. His pioneer fever was quickly replaced by a serious case of gold fever. Manly concluded that the only cure was California.

Manly set out on the Oregon Trail. Upon reaching Fort Bridger, he and his company decided to float down the Green and Colorado rivers to reach California. In their attempt to find a shortcut to the mines they found themselves stranded in Death Valley. He and friend John Rogers were elected to continue west to seek help and return with supplies.
Manly’s account of his struggles for survival is unbelievably detailed and spell-binding. It was a struggle on two levels— to avoid death by starvation, thirst and exhaustion and a struggle for moral survival as the man responsible for the lives of his company. Patricia Nelson Limerick carefully examines these two struggles in her marvelous Foreword.

Heyday Books deserves a great deal of credit for reprinting this invaluable piece of Californiana in such a handsome volume and made even more valuable by the inclusion of an outstanding Foreword, Preface, Epilogue and Notes.