Jenks, Daniel Albert (sold)

Daniel Albert Jenks (1827 - February 8, 1869) was an American gold prospector, pioneer, trader, cowboy, adventurer, artist, and diarist active in the Transmississippi from roughly 1849 to 1860. Jenks was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the son of a local Baptist deacon and grocer. His is best known for his drawing and detailed journals covering over 10 years of adventuring in the American West. Jenks first went west as a Forty-Niner in search of California Gold. Having some resources and education, Jenks secured a berth on a ship around South America to San Francisco. His journals describe in detail the brutality and lawlessness of the early California gold camps. He soon became disillusioned with prospecting and attempted to settle as a merchant's clerk in Yreka, on the California-Oregon border. A restless spirit, this proved too sedate for his liking and he quickly turned back to prospecting, only to, once again, become disillusioned. Jenks returned to San Francisco in 1857, from which he embarked on the homeward journey to Pawtucket. Like many 49ers returning east, he found he could not acclimate to New England society and once again, in 1859, set out west, this time overland. He, with friends and a wagon train, struck out overland from Kansas City, first for Colorado, where he left his friends, then north into Wyoming towards California. He arrived in Yreka August 25, 1859, and returned to clerking, and again to prospecting. His health failing, in 1865, he traveled back to Rhode Island, where he died in 1869 his hometown of Pawtucket, at just 41. Today, his journals and sketches are considered among the best records of the pioneer experience in the formative years of the American West. All in all, his journals consists of five volumes. The first three, covering from 1849 - 1859, were sold by Christies in 2012 into unknown private hands, fetching some 185,000 USD. The final two volumes, capturing from 1859 - 1965, are, to our knowledge, preserved at the Pawtucket Historical Society. The Library of Congress preserves 22 of his original drawings.