Updating “From Marthasville to Marysville in 1850”
by Bob Brail
This article is written as a sequel to an article that appeared in the Missouri Historical Society Bulletin in 1963. "From Marthasville to Marysville in 1850" was written by Charles W. Bryan, Jr. Bryan's article should be read before this update; it can easily be found online.
When Charles W. Bryan, Jr., wrote this article in 1963, he lacked one enormously useful tool which researchers today regularly utilize: the internet. Although Bryan had a treasure trove of family letters, he could not easily access or search federal population censuses or marriage records. So, while his article is extremely interesting because he makes effective use of the letters he had before him, the article is lacking some basic information that a researcher today can obtain in a matter of minutes without ever leaving his home.
Bryan is unsure of the relationships between the Lammes and Maupins, but it is no mystery. Amanda Lamme, Jackson's wife, was the daughter of Thomas and Ann Maupin. In other words, when Amanda died, she left not just a grieving husband, but also grieving parents. After reaching California, Jackson Lamme's children were left in the care of their grandparents, the Maupins, for a period of time, probably when Lamme returned to Missouri to remarry.
In the 1850 federal census, Jackson Lamme is listed in Boone County with Amanda and their daughters. Lamme's estate was assessed at $1000. The Thomas Maupin family is also listed there. The Maupin estate was worth $2000 and included two slaves. It is not clear why these families were listed in Boone County when it is known they left from Marthasville in 1850, but inconsistencies like this were common in the 1850 census because of the great migration to California.
In the 1852 California census, both the Lammes and Maupins, with their three adult sons, are farming in Solano, California. In fact, the census listing suggests the two families were living in the same house or were next-door neighbors. Lamme had not yet remarried. By 1860 Jackson Lamme had gone back to Missouri to remarry and had returned to California. He was a stock farmer Vacaville with an estate worth $5000. The Maupins are listed in the same county, with an estate worth $8500. Shortly after this Lamme and his new wife had twins, a boy and a girl, listed in the 1870 federal census as ten-year olds. Thomas Maupin died in 1887 and Jackson Lamme in 1887; both are buried in California.
Also of interest is the fact that Jackson Lamme's sister married Lewis Howell, who has connections with several of the Boone-Duden area Forty-niners featured in both newsletter articles, some by marriage and several through attendance at his school.
This would include Archibald Samuel Bryan, who was educated at the private school of his uncle, Lewis Howell, near the eventual location of Mechanicsville, along with his three cousins, the Castlio brothers, who were featured in the previous newsletter. In 1848 he moved to Warrenton and worked in surveyor's office. Bryan mined for gold his first year in the gold fields, but for the next two years he operated a store for miners. In 1853 Bryan returned to Missouri by way of Nicaragua with $5000 in gold dust. Two years later he and his brother began operating a ferry at Washington, Missouri. When gold was discovered in Montana in 1862, Bryan quit the ferry business and began operating a steamboat on the Missouri River. He spent the rest of his life as a riverboat captain, piloting steamboats on the Missouri, Yellowstone, Cumberland, Ohio, Gasconade, and Osage Rivers.
The “Frank Howell” mentioned in Archibald Bryan's letter was Francis Newton Howell, who was born in 1832, the namesake of his grandfather, Francis Howell, Sr. The 1850 federal census lists Howell in St. Charles County living with his mother. However, the same census taken just six weeks later in California, lists Howell as a miner at Granite Creek in Eldorado County, California, living with Calvin S. Culp of Andrew County, Missouri (Culp is also listed in the Missouri census records as living at home with his parents). Because it was impossible to travel from Missouri to California in only six weeks, it is clear that parents named their absent sons as members of their households. Howell returned to Missouri at some point, because he is listed in 1853 county tax records as owning eighty acres. However, he returned to California because he married Eleanor Wilson in Sonoma California, in 1862, where he farmed for the next several years. In 1880 he and his family moved to the Arizona Territory.
The most important piece of information Charles W. Bryan, Jr., lacked was the cause of Amanda Lamme's death. Since the letter Jackson Lamme sent to his family informing them of her death is apparently lost, Bryan could only guess at its cause and location. However, it is known for a certainty today that Amanda Lamme died of cholera about ten miles west of what is now Bridgeport, Nebraska, on Highway 92. In 1912, the state of Nebraska erected a monument marking the grave of “Amanda Lamin,” a victim of cholera who was going to California in 1850. Decades later, in 1977, an English researcher, Reginald Duffin, using the trail diaries of other Forty-niners and other documents, proved beyond a doubt that the monument was incorrect, and that the woman who had died there of cholera was Amanda Lamme. Some years later, the state of Nebraska placed a new marker with the corrected information. Duffin's article can be read in its entirety here:history.nebraska.gov/sites/history.nebraska.gov/files/doc/publications/NH1977LaminLamme.pdf
Sources: “Amanda Lamin – Devonshire, England – or Amanda Lamme – Marthasville, Missouri” by Reg. P.Duffin (nebraskahistory.org); California 1852 Census (familysearch.org); Findagrave.com; History of Boone County, Missouri by William Switzler (archive.org); “Marthasville – Rich in History” (cityofmarthasville.com); Federal Population and Slave Censuses.
