Elizabeth Wisdom Rhodes Hamrick

Elizabeth Wisdom Rhoads Hamrick was an early California Pioneer woman, who may of been born to her parents Daniel and Barbara Rhoads in Kentucky even tho her headstone reads "Native of Missouri" she was born in 1826 and brought her young family to California in 1850 where they settled first in Jackson Valley, at the height of the Gold Rush.

Elizabeth and her husband Jesse Calvert Hamrick had been married just three years before their journey to California, Elizabeth had with her two-year old James Edward Hamrick and one year old Lavina Jane Hamrick and she was pregnant with her third baby. She had her third child practically the minute she arrived in California , perhaps at Yeomet, and named her third child Cosumnes California Hamrick, after the area where they lived in California.

Their arduous overland journey would be one that would take them from Missouri over the Oregon Trail to the California Trail cut off, and across both the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to their new home in beautiful Amador.

When Jesse's brother, George Hamrick makes the overland trail journey by wagon train 13 years later in 1863, he brings along with him their parents, Nimrod and Mariah Hamrick and Elizabeth's sister Barbara Rhoads Prather. Most incredible of all is the discovery of George's Overland Trail Journal. In addition, two other siblings of Elizabeth came to California for a new life, including her sister Rachel Rhoads Belknap and her brother Thomas Sharpe Rhoads. The Rhoads website is a gathering of descendants of Henry Rhoads, the Elder Immigrant, he is Elizabeth's ancestor.

On the trail to California, Elizabeth travelled with two babies and was pregnant as well, this must have been very uncomfortable at times for Elizabeth Rhoads Hamrick in 1850. The children of Elizabeth were all living in the Jackson Valley, until the family lost their land in the court-disputed Arroyo Seco fiasco, and they then moved up to the New York Ranch area, where Elizabeth filed for homestead in 1878, by 1886 the 160 acres were hers.

Her daughter Lavina grew up to marry Henry Dillian and have many children in the Amador area. Later Elizabeth also had a son she named after her new home, she called him Amador Jackson Hamrick. She must of loved her home to name her children after the area. Elizabeth gave birth to eleven children and was said to of given birth to the first two white children in the area.

They lived near their "Hamrick Toll Road" when they owned the New York Ranch property and farmed their land. Her husband Jesse also tried his hand at gold mining. In 1870 Elizabeth's husband Jesse Calvert Hamrick(a descendant of Henry I, King of England) served as the precinct delegate from Ione at the Democratic Convention. I found their portrait in the California Room at the California State Library in Sacramento.

Elizabeth's daughter Sarah Ellen Hamrick Martin was my great grandmother and was Elizabeth's 4th child. Elizabeth had seven more children after Sarah, including Anna Maria Hamrick James, George D. Prentice Hamrick, Henry Clay Hamrick, Elmer Ellsworth Hamrick, Edgar Clarence Hamrick and Cecilius Calvert Hamrick, who was just ten years old when Elizabeth's husband Jesse died. The Gold Country surnames of Hamrick, Martin, Rhoads, McMurry, Dillian, James, Prouty, Chenowith, Elrod, Kelley, Weaver, Hunter, Hawkins, Canvin, Hanley, Whitney, Silva, James and more, all occur as collaterol family names. I have been collecting Hamrick descendants and would very much like to hear from anyone who is descended from Elizabeth.