John Udell

John Udell (22 June 1795 – 30 June 1874) was an American farmer and Baptist lay preacher who is primarily known for two detailed diaries he kept of his travels to California across the Great Plains of the United States. He traversed the overland route four times between 1850 and 1859, returning by sea on his first three trips. After his fourth and final trip to California he remained there, settling in Solano County and later in Sonoma County. His first diary, Incidents of Travel to California Across the Great Plains, was published in 1856. His second diary, Journal of John Udell, Kept During a Trip Across the Plains, was first published in 1859 and is an account of his last trip to California as a member of the Rose-Baley Party.

Early years and marriage Modern accounts of John Udell's early life are based on his autobiographical sketch published in 1856 as part of Incidents of Travel to California Across the Great Plains and summarized in Lyle H. Wright's introduction to the 1946 edition of Udell's second diary, Journal of John Udell, Kept During a Trip Across the Plains.

Born in New York City, he was the eldest of Phebe (née Bailey) and John Udell's 13 children. According to Udell, his great-grandfather Lionel had been a physician and innkeeper in Exeter, England. He emigrated to the United States in the late 17th century, settling in Stonington, Connecticut where he continued to practice as a physician. Udell's grandfather (also named John) had a shipping business in Stephentown, New York, but after his death, his business partners "absconded" with the company's cash, leaving large debts to be paid by Udell's father. For a while his father, who had previously worked as a merchant seaman out of New York, ran a sloop on the Hudson River belonging to the Schermerhorn family. The young John Udell served as the cook and cabin-boy.

In 1810, Udell's father moved the family to the wilderness of northeastern Pennsylvania where he took up farming. It was in Pennsylvania that Udell became a Baptist. He would remain a devout member of the faith until his death, preaching to small gatherings and once marrying a couple on one of his westward wagon trains. However, according to Lyle Wright, there is no evidence that he was ever formally trained or ordained as a minister.

Even before his transcontinental journeys, Udell had been an inveterate traveller.

Travels to California

Udell made his first overland trip to California in 1850 to seek his fortune in the Gold Rush. His sons, Oliver and Henry (by that time young men), accompanied him. When Udell returned to Ohio after failing to make any money as a miner, they remained in California eventually settling in Allendale, a small town in Solano County. As with his next two trips, Udell had travelled outward on the California Trail and had travelled part of the way back by sea rather than retracing the overland route. His second and third trips to California were in 1852 and 1854. They were no more successful financially than the first one had been. He had to support himself there with a series of odd jobs. In 1856, a year after his arrival back in Ohio, he published his first diary, Incidents of Travel to California Across the Great Plains, which detailed the 1850, 1852, and 1854 journeys.

Udell undertook his final overland journey to California in 1858. This time he travelled with his wife Emily. They were in their mid-60s and the intention was to stay in California permanently, living out their old age near their sons Oliver and Henry. They began their journey in Missouri travelling via the Santa Fe Trail. They joined the Rose-Baley Party, which was the first emigrant party to attempt the final stretch to California via Beale's Wagon Road, at the time little more than a rough trail. In July the party camped near Inscription Rock (now El Morro National Monument) in New Mexico. Several members of the party, including Leonard Rose, Gillum Baley, and Udell, carved their names into the stone. Their inscriptions can still be seen today.

Later years Udell and his wife made it safely to Albuquerque in November 1858 despite the extreme hardships of the trek back. He managed to get a job there taking care of the US Army's livestock, and the following spring he and his wife set out again for California. This time they travelled with Edward Beale's road construction party. The couple finally arrived in Los Angeles in June 1859. They took a boat to San Francisco and then made their way to Solano County to join their sons. He is buried in Paskenta Cemetery in Tehama County, California where one of his daughters was living at the time of his death.

Udell appears as a character in the 1995 children's novel Sallie Fox: The Story of a Pioneer Girl. The book, based in part on Udell's second diary, is a semi-fictionalized biography of Sallie Fox who as a twelve-year-old child had travelled with the Rose-Baley Party. She survived both the Mojave attack which killed her stepfather and the trek back to Albuquerque during which her half-brother died. Like John and Emily Udell, she and her remaining family eventually reached California in 1859.

Diaries Incidents of Travel to California Across the Great Plains; Together with the Return Trips through Central American and Jamaica to which are Added Sketches of the Author's Life.

This diary, chronicling Udell's first three trips from the American Midwest to California overland by wagon and back again by sea was published in Ohio by the Ashtabula Sentinel in 1856. In addition to what book collector and bibliographer Henry Wagner described as a "long account of his restless wanderings", the book also contains an autobiographical sketch and articles on California and the United States Constitution.

Journal of John Udell, Kept During a Trip Across the Plains, Containing an Account of the Massacre of a Portion of his Party by the Mojave Indians in 1859.

Udell's second diary, which subsequently served as the primary source for 21st-century accounts of the ill-fated Rose-Baley Party, was first published in 1859 by the Solano County Herald. It was republished on its own by the Sentinel Steam Press in 1868. It was published again in 1946 with an introduction by Lyle H. Wright as part of the California Centennial Series.