Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/427

Rh resulting memoir require special attention here. It was a brief but tolerably accurate presentation en résumé of Californian history, statistics, people, institutions, manners and customs, closing with a recommendation of the country as a field for French commerce. I have occasion to cite it elsewhere on several points. I append the names of forty-seven pioneers who came in 1833, though in a few cases the year of arrival is not quite certain. There were some thirty-five more who came, but did not stay or return. The leading names according to subsequent prominence as citizens are Forster, Graham, Johnson, Leese, and Walker. Four of all the list, Forster, Leese, Nidever, and Meek, were living in 1880; Meek and Leese I think also in 1884.

An interesting incident of 1834 is the visit of Hall J. Kelley. He was a Yankee school-master, an intelligent and energetic young man, an enthusiast on the subject of Pacific-coast settlement, whose eccentricities finally developed into insanity, and whose projects and writings are noticed fully in my History of Oregon. Kelley crossed the continent from Vera Cruz to San Blas in 1833. On his way he had interviews with prominent Mexicans, and wrote a letter to president Santa Anna on his project of settling California after he should have effected his purpose in Oregon. From San Blas he took passage by water