Hearts West by Chris Enss

of a woman’s role as a civilizer in frontier society. Her profound declarations and ideas shocked most readers, generated attention from politicians, and prompted a job offer from the Sing Sing Prison, where she was invited to serve as jail matron for the women’s section.
    Eliza was twenty-seven when she accepted the position at Sing Sing, and she set about immediately to change the cruel ways in which female inmates were treated. She brought the establishment out of its dark age, where harsh fire-and-brimstone religiosity was practiced, and into a new era where prisoners were supplied with books and taught to read.
    Feeling restless and increasingly resentful of Eliza’s popularity as a reformer, Thomas went west again in 1847. A year later, while visiting San Francisco, he fell ill and died from complications of pneumonia. Once Eliza heard of Thomas’s death, she left at once for California. With her arms around her sons, nine-year-old Charles and eleven-year-old Edward, Eliza walked through the muddy, unpaved San Francisco streets toward the mortuary. Rowdy men filled every thoroughfare, parading from gaudy gambling house to gaudy saloon and back again like ants. Bawdy music spilled out of windows and doors of the bars, and guns fired at all hours of the night. Eliza drank in what she deemed “a wild, depraved scene—the reckless abandon of a city raging with Gold Rush fever.”
    The lack of women in this rambunctious setting did not escape her attention. She was one of a handful of females in the Gold Country and wherever she went, men stared at her. “Doorways filled instantly,” she wrote, “little islands in the street were thronged with men who seemed to gather in a moment, and who remained immovable until I passed.”
    Recalling her belief that women were “civilizers in a frontier society,” a plan began to take shape. “If this rugged area were to be reformed—it would take women to bring that change about,” she later wrote. After a short rest, Eliza began the journey back to the East Coast with the idea to petition single women to move to California as “checks upon the many evils” there.
    On February 2, 1849, Eliza drafted an advertisement to be published in New York papers that explained her intentions:

    It is proposed that the company shall consist of persons not under twenty-five years of age, who shall bring from their clergyman, or some authority of the town where they reside, satisfactory testimonials of education, character, capacity, etc., and who can contribute the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, to defray the expenses of the voyage, make suitable provision for their accommodation after reaching San Francisco, until they shall be able to enter upon some occupation for their support, and create a fund to be held in reserve for the relief of any who may be ill, or otherwise need aid before they are able to provide for themselves.

    To give her advertisement an air of respectability and authority she hoped would further attract prospective brides, she secured endorsements from leading political figures like Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Ward Beecher. More than 200 ladies responded to Eliza’s broadside, but a sudden illness kept her from being able to actively organize the expedition. In the end, only a handful of brides-to-be agreed to go to California with her.
    Reformer Eliza Farnham authored this broadside encouraging single women to come West and act as “cheers upon many of the evils there.”
    CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, VB-4
    Eliza and her entourage set sail on April 15, 1849. The trip was widely publicized in frontier newspapers. Lonely miners eagerly anticipated the arrival of the packet ship Angelique , hoping to find a wife among its gentle freight. Some men, such as miner Henry Holmes, made mention of the forthcoming event in their daily journals. “Went to church three times