Holliday, J. S

Jaquelin Smith Holliday II was born on June 10, 1924 in Indianapolis, and served in the United States Navy during World War II. He graduated from Yale University in 1948 with a degree in history and was prepared to enter his family's steel business when noted rare book dealer Ed Eberstadt showed Holliday William Swain's 1849 diary of his journey to California, suggesting that it could be the basis of an important book. Holliday took Eberstadt's advice and began work on what was originally titled "A Pocketful of Rocks," interspersing Swains account with other diaries, and other sources. Due to Holliday's tenures as a professor at San Francisco State, assistant director of the Bancroft Library, director of the Oakland Museum, and director of the California Historical Society, the book took thirty years to complete and was finally published as "The World Rushed In" in 1981. He subsequently wrote "Rush for Riches," another treatment of the California Gold Rush, and had several other projects partially completed before his death in Carmel on August 31, 2006.

From the description of J. S. Holliday papers, 1959-2006. (California State Library). WorldCat record id: 662502874

J. S. Holliday, the author of The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience (New York: Simon and Schuster, c1981), based in large part on the experience of William Swain, who went to California during the gold rush with a few friends from his hometown in a company of Marshall Michigan men, the "Wolverine Rangers." He returned home to his wife Sabrina and brother George in February 1851.

Sara Sabrina Swain (1860-1953), daughter of William and Sabrina Swain. Nancy Williams, cousin of Sara Swain, was married to a grandson of Rebecca Swain, half-sister of William Swain. Rebecca married a Mormon and journeyed to Salt Lake in 1847.

From the description of J. S. Holliday research collection on the William Swain family, 1799-1980. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84849166

J. S. Holliday, the author of The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience (New York: Simon and Schuster, c1981), based in large part on the experience of William Swain, who went to California during the gold rush with a few friends from his hometown in a company of Marshall Michigan men, the "Wolverine Rangers." He returned home to his wife Sabrina and brother George in February 1851.

Sara Sabrina Swain (1860-1953), daughter of William and Sabrina Swain. Nancy Williams, cousin of Sara Swain, was married to a grandson of Rebecca Swain, half-sister of William Swain. Rebecca married a Mormon and journeyed to Salt Lake in 1847.

From the description of J. S. Holliday research collection on the William Swain family, 1799-1980. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702164690

J. S. Holliday's gold rush history, The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience (New York: Simon and Schuster, c1981), is based in large part on the experiences of forty-niner William Swain. Swain was born in Youngstown, New York in 1821, the second son of Isaac and Patience Swain. He taught school from 1844 to 1846, and married Sabrina Swain in 1847. Their first child, Lila Crandall Swain, was born in June 1848. When the gold discoveries in California were announced at the end of 1848, William decided to go to California. At Independence, Missouri, they joined a company of men from Marshall, Michigan, the Wolverine Rangers. In May 1849 they started on their overland journey, reaching California in November of that year. A year later, Swain started for home via Panama, reaching New York in February 1851.

J. S. Holliday was introduced to the William Swain journals and letters by Edward Eberstadt, the New York rare book and manuscript dealer who had acquired them from William Swain's daughter Sara Sabrina Swain. Eberstadt had intended to publish the journal and diary but had been unable to do so due to the press of business and ill health, and asked Holliday, a recent Yale graduate, to take over the project. Holliday did so, and met Sara Swain in 1948. Born in 1860, Sara was a school teacher and amateur historian of Niagara County, New York. Holliday discovered that she still held letters that her mother Sabrina and uncle George had sent to her father during the gold rush. Sara gave Holliday the letters, which form part of the present collection, in 1951. She died in 1953.

The Swain collection includes documents concerning William Swain's father, Isaac, who had first been married to Elizabeth Hall. Their daughter, Rebecca, married Frederick Granger Williams, who was a counselor to Joseph Smith. The Williams family followed Joseph Smith to Illinois and Missouri and made the overland journey to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Her grandson, Frederick Granger Williams, married Nancy Clement, who later corresponded with Sara Sabrina Swain.

From the guide to the J. S. Holliday research collection on the William Swain family, 1799-1980, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)