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by Tracey Crow (Author)
This family history tells the stories of ordinary people during extraordinary times. Each chapter tells the stories of these remarkable families by the state and time in which they lived. Daniel Rhoads served as a sharpshooter in the 1st American Army at Boston during the Revolutionary War. He and his brother Henry tamed the wild frontier of Kentucky. Henry became the Father of Muhlenberg County. Brothers John and Daniel Rhoads were members of the First Relief Party to rescue the Donner Party; after a grueling six-month journey across the continent from Missouri in 1846. "Are you men from California or do you come from heaven?" asked one of the starving Donner Party women when she saw Daniel. The Smith and Wardlow families lived through three Civil War battles practically on their doorsteps and endured their county being occupied by the Union Army. Niles Esrey encountered Rebel Bushwackers under Bloody Bill Anderson in Ray County, Missouri, was imprisoned and lived to tell his story. His brothers James and Thomas were killed during the Civil War and both lie in unmarked graves. Sam Campbell and his sons went west in 1849 seeking their fortunes in the California Gold Rush finding enough gold to buy the cove at Pt. Arena. Thomas Rhoads - perhaps the most famous Rhoads - scouted the Utah basin for Brigham Young in 1846, struck it rich in the California Gold Fields, took his gold back to Utah and had an illustrious career as a Mormon missionary, settling Kamas Valley, visiting Native American tribes in Arizona and Idaho, serving on the state constitution committee and various offices and was a legislator for Summit County. The family tree holds many veterans, from the Revolutionary War to Operating Enduring Freedom. They served in pivotal actions in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Some didn't make it home and some made it home but were never the same. Let's not forget the women and girls who made all this possible by taking care of the home fires, even as they had to make new homes in the wilderness at the whims of their men. One wife, Amanda Esrey Rhoads, refused to go to the new land Daniel had purchased near Lemoore, California (which didn't exist) as she was settled comfortably in Gilroy. She did eventually go when the new adobe home was built. The Rhoads girls, Elizabeth, Sarah and Catherine, after traveling across the continent from Missouri, in 1846 and 1847 all married as soon as they got to California but within three years each had lost their husbands... but were rich in gold and land. Elizabeth, cousin Christina Patterson and sister-in-law Matilda Rhoads were up close and personal with the Donner Party tragedy as Elizabeth lived at Johnson's Ranch where the survivors were first taken. All the girls settled on the Cosumnes River near Sloughhouse and were there in 1848 when gold was discovered not far from where they lived. In fact, they already had discovered flakes of gold in the rivers as they washed their clothes. And this was before the gold discovery at Sutter's Mill. Sadie Rhoads Hollister was married to a Wild West Sheriff until he was gunned down. Lucille LeSueur aka Joan Crawford is a Rhoads descendant! We should make a movie about this family!
