To those noble men and women who pioneered the road and to their descendants, most of whom were born in the Southern Mines and who have been so generous with their time and so gracious in giving us the information we needed. Especially are we grateful to a small group of friends who, for love of the Old Road, have answered innumerable questions, written countless letters, given days of their time, the hospitality of their homes, the use of pictures, scrapbooks, documents, private letters and everything that might be of service: Celia Crocker Thompson of Lodi, Robert A. Curtin of San Rafael, the late Saul Morris of Stockton, Edwin and Charles Harper of Big Oak Flat, Helen Cutting Stratton of Chinese Camp and George Egling of San Jose.

We also acknowledge with deep appreciation extremely valuable contributions and help from Helen Weber Kennedy, Inez Henderson Pond, Ellen Deering and Dr. Rockwell D. Hunt in Stockton; from Virginia Best Adams, Grace Sovulewski Ewing, Lawrence Degnan, John C. Preston, Donald E. McHenry, Douglass H. Hubbard and Wayne Bryant at Yosemite National Park; Ralph Anderson and Homer W. Robinson formerly at Yosemite National Park; Dr. Carl P. Russell in Berkeley; William Sell at Ahwahnee, Madera County; Harold C. Holmes, John P. Ryan and Judge A. T. Shine in Oakland; Ruth Ann Newport, W. F. Speer, Lewis Bach, John Newman, Don Hineman and John O’Hara of Sonora; Lynn Owen and Edith Brabazon of Moccasin; Catherine Munn Phelan of San Mateo; Dr. Duane Deakins of Murphys; John H. Lawrence in San Francisco; Mrs. Raymond Willms, Mrs. Tina Williams and Mrs. Samuel Baugh of Knight’s Ferry; Charles Leidig of Hayward; Clotilda De Paoli and Sylvia Vail of Big Oak Flat; David Tulloch, Mrs. Daniel Nolan Brennan and Mrs. Lucile Tulloch of Oakdale; Ed Whitmore of Modesto and Howard Egling of Le Grand.

We wish also to express special appreciation to the staffs of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, the State Library at Sacramento, the California Historical Society Library at San Francisco, the College of the Pacific Library and the Haggin Museum at Stockton; the San Leandro and Oakland Public Libraries.

In particular we wish to thank Mrs. J. B. Lanktree of Alameda for supplying a quiet apartment in which to write.

We also gratefully acknowledge indebtedness to our husbands: to Emil P. Schlichtmann for driving the family car literally thousands of miles up and down the Big Oak Flat Road from Stockton to Yosemite Valley; for doing a superlative job of copying such old photographs and daguerreotypes as we were not able to acquire and for compiling our mileage charts, which are as accurate as the slight variations of modern speedometers permit them to be; to the late William G. Paden whose last piece of field research was working out the 1833 route of Joseph Reddeford Walker and his mountain men over the Sierra Nevada, a “mystery trail” not previously located but which is described in the last chapter of this volume.

We also thank the many other friends who have assisted us in countless ways. Without their measureless help there could have been no beginning and certainly no adequate end to this book.

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