Page 27 - People & Places In Time

The Oregon Trail west from St. Lewis took them as far as Idaho where they headed south with others into California.
centering around the Missouri river as a means to get crops to market. So now we are in the southwest and I’m not sure why. There is some reference made in Lewis’ letters home of people he knew nearby. I don’t know if they were there before or after him; maybe they went there together?
My great grandfather Zadoch Smith’s arrival, two hundred miles east of Mc- Donald County, would not happen until twenty-three more years. Of course, I can never really know the answers to my questions regarding these two men, Lewis and Zadoch. They lived only one hundred miles apart in Tennessee and North Carolina. Now they’ve each traveled west with their families, separately and I’m sure unbe- known to each other. Still relatively close by in southwestern Missouri about one hundred forty miles apart both justices of the peace.
The nation is at peace as we enter the 1870’s and the Mitchell-Duff and Smith families have settled into Missouri Tennessee and North Carolina are now history. Lewis and Mary Mitchell remained on the farm in Missouri until they died. Lewis on May 18, 1862 and Mary twenty-three years later, on August 5, 1885. Of their children Stephen was killed in the war with Mexico in 1849. Amanda stayed near home and married John Roseberry, she died in McDonald county, Missouri in 1870. Robert came to California, living in Monterey where he took his own life. Marcellus died in California of Mountain Fever. Chasing gold, I think, destroyed many lives. K
It’s hard to know, but in reading letters exchanged between Lewis Mitchell and family back in Virginia, he struggled at times with despondency. Letters from Adolphus and Ozro to their parents in Missouri showed a fondness in remembrance for a family that loved music and enjoyed life. I wonder that, with his boys so far away and three dead, if life had not got the best of him. I can’t be sure because this tendency toward melancholy has remained with our family right up to me.
Into California then on to Visalia
Adolphus and Ozro Mitchell, were the youngest of Lewis and Mary’s five children and they left for California in 1854. At the time Adolphus was twenty-five and Ozro twenty-three. They started out with oxen and wagons headed westward to California; but decided to abandon their wagon at Green River (in western Wyoming) and with mule and horse packed from there. Along this northern route (the Oregon
Main Street, Visalia in 1863 seven years following Adolphus and Ozros arrival.
11