Dear Listers: I am new to this list and only just found out about it, but I am not new to the Gold Rush, California History or genealogy. I have joined to exchange information and possibly gain a little. I appreciate the Gold Rush more than most and suppose that you all do as well, though I haven;t seen enough correspondence to know what you focus upon. I am performance director of the Calicanto Singers and we specialize in music of California History in General, and Gold Rush in particular. We give costumed performances of Gold Rush music and were lucky enough to be featured at Opening Day (2/24/98) at the Oakland Museum ceremonies for their big show as well as other festivals, museums etc. Although my point is not to dwell on this for any reason other than explaining my personal involvement in the Gold Rush, I do have to say we have some openings for musicians/singers RIGHT NOW and if you love this music and history the way I do and live in the Bay Area, this may be a chance to do something special. Now with that out of the way, this explains why I have read every biography, letter, journal book I could get my hands on on this subject and I daresay that I have encountered and sang just about every song written or adapted in those days, enough to write a book just about it. I have a little mystery that has kept my ears cocked while doing all of this reading and took me in special directions. It takes a little explainin', so bear with me. My GGGpa was Biar Curless. He came, late for the Gold Rush, in 1859. His older brother Dr. William Curless was already here, though his year of arrival is still in dispute. We know a lot about these guys. I transcribed Biar's diary recently and just self-xeroxed published it for family and one copy for the Calif. Historical Society Museum in SF. It was written in pencil, he was dyslexic and he carried it thrice over the plains so its pretty beat up. My cousin-in-law owns the diary but sent it to me because I showed the interest and proved it by doing the work. Folded up in the front of the diary was an innocuous piece of paper, which my genealogy research into the Curless family and Gold Rush stuff set off alarm bells. It was a promissory note for $100 dated October 29, 1849 and signed by Biar's second eldest brother Samuel Ashton Curless. Now according to our Curless Family Bible, published in 1850 and with family pages in the middle filled in with births, deaths wedding etc, Samuel Ashton Curless died in January of 1850 in California. Because all of the family was in Cedar Rapids Iowa at that time, the place was perhaps unknown. We don;t know how Grandpa Biar got the note, when he got the note or anything else. But he carried it with him in his diary. When I saw the note, I realized how poignant it was. He had taken on a debt, probably for a claim share, tools or whatever then died a couple of months later, perhaps from pneumonia in that terrible winter of 49-50. The note could have been signed anywhere, on the Oregon-Cal trail, in the mines, in SF, I just don;t know. There are scant clues from it. It has a paper company watermark from Southworth Company, but no notary or seal. It names the following men as indebted to , full quote: "$100 For value received I promise to pay Jesse Demais __ (T or I) Newton I Harryman [no commas included here] the sum of one Hundred dollars baring interest from date Oct 29th 1849. Samuel A. Curless" Now simply put, do any of you have knowledge of these other men? I will go down the list of what I have looked at. He came from Cedar Rapids Iowa and he was born May 12, 1827 in Ohio. He was probably unmarried as he would have been noted in Family Bible as all other siblings were, at least to the family's knowledge. His younger brothers married Shaw sisters there in Cedar Rapids in mid- 50s and supposedly, the Curless had come to Cedar Rapids along with a family named Brown, who had been neighbors originally in Clermont/Brown County Ohio. As the Curless were a very old NJ Quaker family, there was no military tradition to speak of, though I have not discounted the possibility that he could have been in Stevenson's Regiment ( I have yet to find a complete roster of these men and I have been looking). The Curless were ME from Ohio on but had been very Quaker in the early days since 1680 when George Corlies came to Shrewsbury NJ. His brother William (the eldest son and a Medical Doctor) came, either in 52 or 55 and was living in Oroville in 1859 when brother Biar and family came. When you look at where Biar went when he came later, the clues point to Placerville and Oroville as areas but you all know how mobile early GR life was. I have looked at every wagon train from Iowa I could find, checked out every collateral NJ to Ohio ex-Quaker name and where they were (even Jim Marshall was from the same township in NJ as Sam's Grandma, Hannah Johnson Ashton). I have ready every diary that was kept from Iowa pioneers as well as Indiana people and Ohio people (the Curless moved from NJ to OHio in 1818, to Indiana in '33 then to Cedar Rapids in late 40s. I have gone to the Bancroft and checked out the Lorch book and the only citation was from a Dubuque newspaper that said "fifty or so miners from Linn County left for California." I have checked out every Iowa geographical feature in California and I consider a prime area of possible interest to be the Iowa Cabins in Calaveras, where there was a famous fracas early on in 49 (check out Boesseneckers newest, Gold Dust and Gunsmoke). I am intrigued by Shaw's Flat nearby, though there isn't a good explanation of which Shaw it was named after (I used Gudde's Gold Rush place names). I have searched geno databases for those other names and posted queries on the Harryman Genforum cause it might be easier than Newton. I am in contact with all of the Curless researchers in the US but most only found out about our California line because of me. I have checked with the gal near Auburn who has done all of those Gold Rush cemetary listings and she considers it just too early to find him that way. I have read every county history of the placer area (and scoured every index) I could find and searched for Curless and variant name spellings and investigated other settlers from nearby areas. So, Listers, if you have any surname info of these three others, let me know. At some point they were all together in one place to witness the note, but where they came from and where they went is wide open...... About the calligraphy: it is pretty clear but I am having trouble with the capital letters in single initials thats why there are bracketed suggestions. The name Demais looks pretty clear, the only other possibility is Demars, Demaris or perhaps Dennis with a weird a or o. I have a JPEG at work of this note and will be happy to email it to you after next week when I return there. So there it is. Please feel free to contact me privately or via the list. I have learned a great deal in this search but still haven;t found GGUncle Sam. By the way, he was named after his Grandpa Samuel Ashton, a Penn native who came to Ohio in 1807 then lived at a farm in Clermont/Brown Cty (right on the line) through the 1830s. There are a lot more cousins studying Sam as well so once again, we know kind of lot about them back there. For frontier buffs, it is believed by these researchers that Sam may have hunted with his neighbor Cornelius Washburn on summer trapping trips West and son-in-law Wright Soper Curless Sr may have been a part of that too.. In town was a Jedidiah Smith from NJersey, but we don;t know for sure if it was the Jedidiah Strong Smith, though i just came across some land transfers in New Jersey by Jedidiah Strong!!! And JSS's father was apparently running from some shady business, or so said some biographers... Sorry for length, but these things take time. Sincerely, Lance Beeson