Excerpt from History of San Luis Obispo County, California: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers Pleasant Memories - Prosperous Rancheros - Generous Hospitality - Californians in 1835 - General Style of Dress of the People - Pure and Mixed Blood - Fine Voices - California Money Methods of Travel Californian's Easter Sunday - Singular Funeral - Cock Fighting - A Horse Race - Dancing - Descrip tion of a Festival, January io, i83o - Curious Custom - Love's Ofl'ering - Twenty-four Years Later - Captain John Wilson Reminiscences - Return Voyage - California Customs - The Carreta - A Manly Race - Schools - Fecundity of the People Their Tablesf - The Family at Home - vveddings - The Ladies' Costumes - Caballero's Dress - Funeral Customs - Postal Sys tem - 'hospitable Californians - The Ranchos - The Rodeos A Changed Condition - Ecclesiastical or Monkish Government. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book examines the life of the Townsend family and the events that occurred during the period of 1856–1926 that shaped an expanding American West. Bryant and Julia (Riley) Townsend and their three children were born into an age of rapid change and competing cultures. Witnesses to a century of events that shaped a nation, their lives define the complexities and challenges of incomers who arrived in an expanding American West. From the Gold Rush to the California oil boom, from slavery to female suffrage, from Indian Wars to World Wars, the Townsends lived through violent upheavals, outlasting cities, societal beliefs and entire ways of life. Married in a mining camp in Nevada and relocating frequently, the couple embraced the momentary riches, shattering losses and personal disasters faced by a vast number of immigrants, foreign and domestic, striving to survive in an often-hostile landscape. Their lives and those of their three children, Minnie Edith, Bryant and Persia, form the architecture supporting an examination of multiple facets of the Western experience and are exemplars of the different populations that merged to form the American identity. This volume will be of value to students and scholars interested in American history, social and cultural history and modern history.