Fortune's Frenzy : A California Gold Rush Odyssey

The road to hell is paved with good intentions…and gold dust.

When Henry Jenkins’s sawmill business goes bust and his family loses their Indiana farm to foreclosure, he believes gold is the answer to his financial woes. But it takes money to make money. Joining up with the Blackford Mining Company, Jenkins and the prospective miners sign fraudulent promissory notes to borrow from a ruthless businessman, Allen Makepeace, to reach the gold fields.

But when the men arrive in California after an arduous river and sea journey, they face even more dangers in the lawless West that challenge their physical and spiritual well-being. When Jenkins, a God-fearing man, fails to strike it rich in California, he scrabbles to repay Makepeace and return to his destitute family in Indiana. Following in his wake, Henry’s son-in-law becomes a captive passenger on a notorious death ship. Later, Henry’s adult children find their way west and the family pays a terrible price.

Fortune''s Frenzy: A California Gold Rush Odyssey puts the experiences of the Jenkins family and others who took part in the gold rush in the context of 1850s American culture: their past; their community; their daily lives (and deaths) in frontier Indiana, on the sea route to California, and in the mines. The theme is age-old, and still relevant: desperate people falling for get-rich-quick schemes. They fail to consider the sacrifices they will have to make and the dismal odds of their success. Many ended up worse off than when they started.