John Isaiah Caldwell

John Isaiah Caldwell (born c. 1828) was an American attorney, miner, businessman, and school trustee.

Career Caldwell was a native of Champaign County, Ohio. He received his legal education in his native state, being a student under Judge John A. Corwin, who was elected Chief Justice of Ohio in 1851, and was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court at Columbus, Ohio. From there he went to Lexington, Missouri, where he was likewise admitted to practice before the Supreme Court sitting in banc. In 1850, Caldwell set out for California across the plains, arriving in Sacramento on August 12 of that year. The train of which he was a member, when it set out from Lexington, Missouri, consisted of twenty-three wagons. At Independence Rock, Caldwell left the train and packed alone over the mountains and into California, beating the company by sixty days and thus escaping the cholera, which at that time was raging fiercely along the emigrant road. For a time, he mined on the American River, near Folsom, CaliforniaFolsom, but in October he set out for Nevada County, arriving first at Rough and Ready, then the most lively camp in the state. Here he remained during the ensuing winter, going in the early spring with a company of fifteen others to the North Yuba River, where they located a mining claim, calling it the Missouri Bar. On July 3, 1851, having completed their dam, they proceeded to prospect the claim, and found it would pay well. Caldwell continued there until late in November of that year. and then sold out and went back to Missouri by way of Panama.