Book Description

Lewis Carstairs Gunn (1813-1892) and Elizabeth LeBreton Stickney (1811-1906) made their home in Philadelphia after their marriage in 1839, and Lewis left for California in 1849, with his wife and four children joining him two years later. Records of a California family (1928) begins with Lewis Gunn's journal describing his journey from New Orleans to Mexico and then to San Francisco and his life as a miner on the San Joaqun̕, 1849-1850. Mrs. Gunn's letters chronicle her voyage round the Horn with four children in 1851 and their life in Sonora (1851-1861), where her husband published the Sonora Herald and owned a drugstore. She records the affairs of a family (housework, schools, medical care), newspaper publishing, and politics. The Gunns were longtime abolitionists, and Lewis's role in keeping California a free state is detailed. In 1861 the family moved to San Francisco, and the book closes with chapters by Anna Marston summarizing their life there in the 1860s and their later experiences in San Diego.