=============================================================================================================== From: The Big Oak Road to Yosemite, by Margaret Schlichtmann and Irene Paden, first published in 1955, cont. of page 76 (Chapter IV, Chinese Camp) ============================================================================================================== ...Recently the authors received a letter from Howard Egling, grandson of Louis, in which he states that the young John Studebaker, founder of the famous manufacturing company, makers of wagons and later of automobiles, worked in the Egling shop as a helper of such juvenile obscurity that his name apparently has not been remembered as a part of the history of Chinese Camp. From there John went north to the mining camp of Placerville where he became a partner in a firm "that could shoe a mustang or make a wagon." He furnished the mechanical skill while his partners did the blacksmithing. In 1858 he returned to South Bend Indiana, [page 77] where he helped to establish the beginnings of the Studebaker Company.(6) <snip> ...Louis Egling had another helper, James Mecartea, who later branched out with a shop of his own in Chinese Camp which he ran until 1872 and then moved to Big Oak Flat. All but two of his thirteen children were born in Chinese Camp; his son James being probably the first white baby to appear on the scene.... ---------------------------------- (6) Information from The Pioneer, Vol. 13, No. 5, May 15, 1898. ---------------------------------- Bibliography: Pioneer, The. Monthly magazine. Pub. by the Pioneer Publishing Co., San Francisco, Vol.XIII, No.5, May 15, 1898. ----------------------------------