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When gold fever struck in 1849, John S. Darcy - prominent physician, general, and president of the New Jersey Railroad - assembled a company to travel overland to California. In Jersey Gold, Margaret Casterline Bowen and Gwendolyn Joslin Hiles tell the story of that colorful company of some thirty stalwarts and adventurers.Jersey Gold chronicles the experiences of the New Jersey argonauts from their lives before the gold rush to the widely varying fortunes each ultimately found. Animated by the trekkers' own words and observations and illustrated with maps, photographs, and drawings by one of the company's own men, Jersey Gold follows the Newark Overland Company's journey by rail, stage, and riverboat to the Missouri frontier town of Independence, the group's jumping-off point for the Oregon-California trail.