The Journey Begins

     William Morris Stewart requested permission from his father to work at a neighboring

 Ohio farm until haying time. “Why certainly, you can go and stay as long as you have a

 mind, and you need not come back any more unless you wish to."

come back any more unless you wish to.” His mother Miranda overheard the conversation

 and begged her husband to take it back. William, barely a teenager, packed his meager

 belongings and left his family in 1839. He journeyed many places during his lifetime

 supporting himself by sweat, determination and genius. Father and son battled because

 William desired more schooling than the school year of three months offered in

Mesopotamia, Ohio. William saved the money from his farm work and moved to nearby

Farmington to attend an academy. The schoolwork did not challenge him as much as his

lack of social skills. The hulk of a boy did not fit the furniture. His popularity exploded

when other students discovered his math ability. Before long he taught the younger

children and tutored his peers. A year later William paid for his sister Mary to

attend the academy, too. He supported both of them by working for a local farmer. 

     In four years William left Ohio permanently to attend a large high school in Lyons,

 New York that prepared students for university education. Stewart’s name appears with 

over five hundred other students on the 1845 student roster. Stewart was the only scholar

from Ohio. Stewart studied hard and continued his education at Yale, where his

 preparatory education at the Farmington Academy and the Lyons Union School served 

him well. Once again he excelled in mathematics; he even proved a Yale textbook

had a mathematical error in it. He attended Yale for a  a year and a half.

     The California Gold Rush was more compelling to him than his schoolwork. Judge

 Sherwood, a supporter from Lyons, offered him transportation money to make the trip.

Stewart sailed on the steamer Philadelphia from New York City in January 1850. 

Turbulent storms raged on the trip, causing most passengers to turn green and take to their

bunks. Stewart helped the crew after huge waves damaged the ship. By the time the

Philadelphia reached Panama, the sun came out and the waters calmed. The next leg of

the trip meant crossing the Isthmus of Panama on a small boat with three others plus four

indigenous Panamanians maneuvering the craft. Stewart managed to get one of the few

 tickets left on the ship Carolina for the journey from Panama to California. The ship

was overcrowded and they suffered because of a lack of enough food and water. Stewart

 had a quarter in his pocket when he landed in San Francisco five months later. San

 Francisco teemed with the possibility of untold riches. Stewart tried to make money by

 gambling, but preferred working on the wharf. He earned enough to take a steam boat

 ride to Sacramento. Shortly after arriving a fever attacked Stewart; he refused a trip to the

unsanitary hospital, instead using all his strength to ride another boat to Marysville.

Some kind Samaritans put him on a bed of straw near the Deer Creek Stream. He lay

there for eight days looking more dead than alive to passers-by. He drank gallons of water

from the icy stream. When the fever broke, Stewart got up and started his new life near

Nevada City, California.

     Stewart amassed his first fortune not just from mining, but aiding other miners with his

Grizzly Ditch business, a forty-mile canal apparatus that provided water needed for placer

mining. He also spent many hours reading law with John McConnell, a California lawyer

 with expertise in mining law. The combination of experiencing the life of a miner and

 learning the ins and outs of mining law gave Stewart the ticket to making lots of money.