William
King Heiskell (1857- ) and Agnes Daulton Heiskell (1864-1895)
Agnes W. Daulton was born in Fresno County on 4 February 1864.
She was the daughter of Henry
Clay Daulton of Kentucky (b. 1829) and Mary Jane Hildreth
Daulton of Missouri (b. 1831). According to the 1880
census her father was a stock raiser in Fresno County. Agnes
was one of nine children. Her siblings were Mary Sabrina (d. 1872),
Henry Hildreth (b. 1858-d.1889), Ida (b. 1860-d. 1948), John Francis
(b. 1863-d. 1930), Naomi Grace (b. 1866-d. 1898), Jonathan Rae
(b.1868-d. 1923), Maud Louise (b. 1870-d. 1927) and William James
(b. 1873- d. 1950). Agnes married William King Heiskell at 'Shepherd's
Home' on 6 April 1881. She died at the age of 31 in Madera on
27 November 1895. Agnes Daulton was the mother of Isabel, Mary,
Lucile,
and Naomi G. Heiskell; and the grandmother of Jack
Griffin Desmond. Following Agnes' early death, her children
were raised by their maternal grandmother, Mary Daulton, while
her widowed husband traveled to the Yukon in search of gold. No
doubt, he had been inspired by stories of his father, Tyler Davis
Heiskell, who was one of the original 49ers of the California
Gold Rush.
At the age of 12 she wrote the following composition.
The year of 1876
with all its momentous events, its joys and griefs, its
golden sunshine, and its dark shadows, will soon have
passed away into the womb of time and a new year is about
to dawn upon us. It is usual for persons of both sexes,
with the advent of a new year, to form resolutions to
improve upon the past in the observance and practice of
everything which may tend to make themselves happy and
also to contribute to the happiness of those around them.
May our resolutions having such in view be ever adhered
to, improve our minds with sterling truth, and fill our
hearts with noble virtues.
Winter is upon us and soon the sky will be overcast
with clouds, the rains will descend and cold and dreary
will appear in our hills and valleys and plains, but the
rains will fructify the earth, and in a few short months
Spring will come, when the mountains and the hills, the
dells and glens, the valleys and plains, will resume their
beautiful mantles of green, and all nature smiles in the
face of the serene heavens. Wild flowers of every dye
will blush and bloom everywhere before our sight. Little
birds on wanton wing will fill the groves with their matins
and their vespers and all day long the very air with their
melody. Rivers will flow from their sources, through wild
canyons, and then meander through the plain and singing
as they go, and sparkling rills flooded with sunshine
will warble their ballads, keeping cadence with the song
of birds. Oh! How lovely then will be the region we inhabit!
Our lot has indeed been cast in pleasant places. If it
were Spring and Summer all the year with us, as in some
portions of the world, we would not be able to appreciate
the glories they unfold to us when they come after the
storms, the rains, the cloudy skies, and boisterous winds
of winter.
We should be grateful, as I hope we are, for the many
advantages we enjoy through our affectionate parents,
for the supply of all our wants, for the gratification
of our tastes and pleasures and recreations. Let us ever
then be obedient and loving to our parents, and obedient
to our kind teacher who strives to impart knowledge and
instill into our minds a virtuous education to fit us
for the duties that may be in store for us to perform,
that we may become helpers and a blessing to all around
us and a very joy to those with whom we may become more
immediately associated.
But a few years have gone when no sound was heard in
those hills and the plains but the lowing of wild cattle,
the hoot of the owlet, and the sharp bark of the coyote,
and that awakened by the woodpecker tapping the hollow
oak tree. Now we see cozy homes everywhere with peace
and plenty within their doors, and hear the merry voices
of children ringing out upon the air, while from the plain
comes the shrill scream of the whistle of the locomotive,
and the thunder of the cars rushing on-on with tireless
velocity and waking the echoes which had slumbered in
the hills and mountains for a thousand years.
How proud we should be of our dear state, California,
and of our whole country.
What can be grander, or more sublime, than the rising
and setting of the sun? First we behold, with early morn,
a faint flush of crimson in the eastern sky heralding
the approach of the great god of day - now it expands
and extends upwards, then his disc appears, peering over
the mountain top, slowly, slowly, softly, softly he ascends
– larger and larger and then as if by magic, and
in full glory, mounts into the firmament and hill and
mountain, valley and plain, rivers and rill, lake and
ocean afar are flooded with diafonous light, and then
again behold his setting, yonder he seems to sit motionless,
as it were for a minute, on the verge of the western horizon
as if surveying and loathe to leave the scene he had fructified
with his hallowed influence. Slowly, but larger in his
decline, slowly, slowly, softly, softly descends, and
at last sinks beneath the horizon onto his western bed,
leaving behind him a luminous long belt of crimson and
emerald, of amethyst and chalcedony, and purple and golden
dyes, which soon, however, fade from our vision and all
is gray!
Then comes forth the moon, pale empress of the night
– Sweet Luna, now in her chariot, she walks her
orbit in the firmament and with myriads of stars shedding
their calm light upon the sleeping earth!
One would think that the poet, Montgomery1,
had California in view when he gave utterance to the grand
apostrophe thus:
“There is a land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven over all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serene light,
And milder moons emparadise the night.
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Though untutored age of love’s exalted youth.
The wandering mariner whose eye explores,
The loveliest isles and earths enchanting shores,
Views not a land more beautiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air,
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole.
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer sweeter spot than all the rest.
Where shall the land that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man – a patriot – look around,
Oh thou shall find, wherever thy footsteps roam,
That land’s thy country, and that spot thy home.”
In conclusion, oh let us remember our creator in the
days of our youth while the evil days come not, or the
years draw nigh when we would say we can have pleasure
in them. Our creator, our Father in Heaven, our God. Is
it not terrible to think that there are human beings on
this earth who deny the existence of a God! Hear what
a great writer2 said when
contemplating such fearful reality that there are some
who say there is no God! “There is not a flower
that blossoms in the garden but preaches that there is
a God, nor a leaf that twinkles in the sunbeam, nor a
cloud that passes over the moon, nor an insect that in
the breath of the gale or creates a tiny tempest on the
waves of the pool but repeats and re-echoes the testimony
that there is a God! Where the lion roars it out amid
his native wilds and the humming-bird says it in every
color of her plumage and every wafture of her wing; where
the eagle screams up the tidings to the sun; and the sun
in reply writes them round the burning iris of the eagle’s
eye; where the thunder, like a funeral bell hung aloft
in the clouds, tolls out there is a God and the earthquake
mutters and stammers the same great truth below, where
snow in it’s silence, and storm in it’s turmoil,
summer in it’s beauty and winter in it’s wrath;
the blossoms of spring and the golden glories of Autumn
alike testify to a God; where the ten thousand orators
of nature – the thunder bolts, the hailstones, the
rain-drops, the winds, the ocean waves, the lightnings
of the sky, and the cataracts of the wilderness, are all
crashing out, blazing out, thundering out, whispering
out, and murmuring out the true and solemn tidings that
there is a God!”
Oh, I repeat this, let us remember our creator in the
days of our youth while the evil days come not, or the
years drawnigh when we could say we have pleasure in them3.
Agnes Daulton
1876 Age 12
1James Montgomery (November
4, 1771 - April 30, 1854) was a British poet.
2quoting George Gilfillan
(January 30, 1813 – August 13, 1878), a Scottish
author.
3quoting Ecclesiastes 12.1 |
William King Heiskell
William King Heiskell, was born in 1857, the son of Tyler Davis
Heiskell and Isabel (Belle) Patterson. He had two siblings, Jeff
D. Heiskell and Susan P. Heiskell. In 1870, they were living at
Buena Vista, Stanislaus, California. The census records that as
a 13-year old, William was herding hogs on his father's ranch.
By 1880, William had move to Fresno County, and was working as
a sheepherder on the ranch of Henry Clay Daulton, where he met
his wife-to-be, Agnes. After his wife's death at the age of 31,
William travelled to Alaska to join the
Klondike Gold Rush, arriving in May 1900. The census for 1900
shows that he was among the "floating population" of
Alaska. Unfortunately, William did not strike it rich, and returned
to Madera.
Jefferson Davis Heiskell, brother of William King
Heiskell.
He was the founder of
J. D. Heiskell & Co. of Tulare, California
Upon his return to Madera, William King Heiskell
became the night jailer at the Madera County Jail, and then began
work on establishing Courthouse Park, located at the intersection
of Gateway and Yosemite Avenues. He was the park's first superintendent.
Tyler Davis Heiskell
On April 16, 1849, a company of men from Monroe County, Tennessee,
left Knoxville to seek their fortune in the gold fields of California.
Among these 49ers were Tyler Davis Heiskell and his cousin, Hugh
Brown Heiskell.
Leaving St. Joseph, the gateway to the plains, on the 23rd of
May, they pushed their oxen-drawn carts westwards along the
California Trail at a rate of about 16 miles a day. Soon after
crossing South
Pass, and to save time, they took a shortcut called
Sublette Cutoff, the most desolate part of the journey. Their
journey across the desert meant water shortages, heat, dust ,
and the loss of wagons, equipment, supplies and animals. Then,
the Monroe County men followed the
Carson River Route, to the to Sacramento. En route they met
a government relief party, who warned them to press on before
the winter snows would block their passage. On October 18th, the
travelers began their ascent of the Sierra Nevadas. Just a few
days before reaching the highest elevation, a storm dropped three
feet of snow, closing the pass for three days. Luckily, a break
in the weather allowed them to push through before another, massive,
snowstorm closed the pass for the season. On their descent of
the western slope they rescued a fellow 49er, John Campbell, whom
they found on the trail next to his dead horse. A few days later
they were attacked by Indians, and, on October 24th ,arrived in
Weaverville, 60 miles east of Sacramento. There, on Weaver Creek,
they spent the winter, and began their quest for gold in the spring.
The gruelling trip from Knoxville had taken six months and eight
days.1
Sadly, the rigors of the 1849 overland trek proved too much for
Hugh Brown Heiskell. Twice on the westward journey, he had taken
seriously ill, requiring the considerable care of his cousin,
Tyler. However, soon after the company reached Weaverville, Hugh
was stricken again, and, within three weeks, died on Weaver Creek
while cutting logs to build winter cabins.
During the first week of April 1850, Tyler Davis Heiskell and
a partner made about $280 each from mining near Weaverville. He
then headed for summer diggings on the Yuba River, saying that
gold prospecting was "a game of chance".
Belle Patterson also made the journey to California in 1854.
She was the sister of David Patterson, the son-in-law of Andrew
Johnson, Governor of Tennessee and later president of the United
States. Bell travelled with another of her seven brothers, and,
upon her arrival in California, she married Tyler Davis Heiskell.
They settled in Indian
Diggings, El Dorado County , and had three children. William
King, Susan P. and Jefferson Davis Heiskell.
Tyler Davis Heiskell, Lucile Heiskell Desmond's grandfather,
was a member of the California State Assembly (18th District)
from 1856-57, and, in 1878, he became Stanislaus County's delegate
at California's second constitutional convention. He is described
in the following:
Hon. Tyler Davis Heiskell
Oak Dale, Stanislaus
For Stanislaus County
The gentleman from
Stanislaus, who is independent enough to bear the name of a Northern
and a Southern President, was originally from Virginia,
where he was born in Lee County, December 21st, 1823, being now
fifty-five years of age. Moving to Tennessee, he afterwards
made the greater move, via the plains, to California. He arrived
in this state in 1849, and making himself at home in El Dorado
County, he was sent as its representative to the Legislature,
serving as Assemblyman in the session of 1856. At present he is,
and has been for some
time past, a farmer and stock raiser in Stanislaus County. A Democrat,
he was elected to the Constitutional Convention
on the Democratic ticket.
Mr. Heiskell is a man
of singularly retiring habits, being content to let his qualities
speak for themselves. It would not be in good taste to intrude
on this modesty other than to say he possesses both the inbred
and cultivated qualities of a gentleman, the name being deservedly
applied, as it is honorably held.2
T. D. Heiskell (Democrat) was a member
of the State Assembly from El Dorado County (1856), and elected
a member of the State Board of Equalization in 1879.3
1 Volunteer Forty-Niners:
Tennesseans and the California Gold Rush by Walter T. Durham.
Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1997.
2 Biographical sketches of the delegates
to the convention to frame a new constitution for the State of
California, 1878. T.J. Vivian
and D. G. Waldron, editors. San Francisco: Francis and Valentine,
1878. p. 97-98.
3History of California by
Theodore Hittell. San Francisco: H. J. Stone, 1898. vol.
4, p. 645.
Photographs courtesy of Gregory Heiskell Desmond.
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