Hi Listers: What a great list--interesting reading! Can anyone HELP SOLVE A MYSTERY? I'm looking for someone to look up an article in San Francisco area newspapers. My family records have the date of this article, May 20, 1898 but not the name of the paper. The article reports a ship, the Helen W. Almy, in trouble in a storm near San Francisco. Aboard this ship (maybe?) was my great grandfather William McCrea and 11 other miners from Coalgate, Indian Territory--all on their way to the Klondike. They checked into the Brooklyn Hotel, San Francisco, on March 6, 1898 and were never heard from since. Here's a URL for the museum at FOSTER FARM: http://www.teleport.com/~eotic/fosterfm.html PHILIP FOSTER (b.1805, Maine) was a junior partner with Francis W. Pettygrove (of Maine) and married to Pettygrove's daughter, Mary Charlotte. Pettygrove was an agent of AG/AW Benson and Co. In 1842, Foster, his wife and four children, Pettygrove, wife, and another child set sail on the ship Victoria from New York. After a layover in Hawaii (typical) they arrived in Oregon in early spring 1843 on the ship Fama. They were living over their thriving store in Oregon City(corner of 3rd and Main) by May 1843. In early 1844, Foster bought Samuel McSwain's land claim in Eagle Creek. The Foster family moved to Eagle Creek, June 1844. More at http://www.usgennet.org/alhnorus/ahorclak/timeline1.html I've gathered a list of OREGON TRAIL and Emigrant primary materials (diaries, journals, letters, ship rosters, etc.) for the years 1800-1843. View this list at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/5531/ . Or write me at [email protected] and I'd be happy to email you the most updated listing for a spcific year. Patricia Kohnen