Voyage to California: Written at Sea, 1852
The Journal of Lucy Kendall Herrick

edited by Amy Requa Russell, Marcia Russell Good, and Mary Good
Lindgren with an introduction by Andrew Rolle

148 pages, 7-3/4 x 10, illus., cloth, ISBN: 0-87328-165-9, $24.95

Introduction   Sample Pages

From the Southern California Quarterly:

Initially the prospect of reviewing a diary may appear to be a simple task for the reviewer. After all, since the diarist knows what he or she has observed and found worthy of comment, the reviewer is in no position to criticize the choice or treatment of the subject matter selected by the writer. However, the task of reviewing a diary is complicated by the need to examine the role of the editor in putting together the complete book, a book which may become much more than the original diary.

Examining the impact of editing on the book calls back into play the reviewer's responsibility to make the kind of judgments which have been waived in the case of the diarist, particularly since the editor is the driving force behind the very existence of the published diary. In the case of Lucy Kendall Herrick's Voyage to California Written at Sea 1852, no less than three generations of family members were responsible for assembling and editing the final product.

From her perspective as a well-bred young woman who had crossed the Atlantic several times, Lucy Kendall's written impressions of the long voyage to California form a sensitive, articulate, and accurate account of life aboard a sailing ship, as well as provide insights into the sea as a harsh physical as well as social milieu. Neither of these themes are commonly explored in the diaries of women.

Within two years after her arrival in California, Lucy Kendall married William Herrick, an engraver who went on to considerable success as a businessman in San Francisco. The couple had nine children. One of their granddaughters, the late Amy Requa Russell, undertook to publish the diary many years ago, and finally with the help of her daughter, Marcia Russell Good, and her granddaughter, Mary Good Lindgren, the diary of the adventurous woman has appeared in a handsome book published by the Huntington Library. Attractively illustrated with sketches and photographs, the book indeed has blossomed beyond its roots as a diary.

Unlike some published diaries, this one required no explanatory notes from the editors, a commentary on the clarity of the writing. Five additional background pieces by the three generations of editors, plus an extended introduction by historian Andrew Rolle, occupy about 45% of the book , and put the sea voyage into its proper context in the earlier and later history of the Kendall and Herrick families. In a sense, the diary and its accompanying essays describe what must have been a fairly common theme in gold-rush migration: a genteel family which had once known considerable comfort in Europe accepts the perils of the argonaut experience, eventually to reestablish itself as a well-to-do family in California.

Standing alone, the diary is a significant contribution to our understanding of the long and uncomfortable experience that rounding Cape Horn represented to those who opted for the all-sea route to the gold rush. Similarly, the accompanying notes are a useful commentary on the fortunes of family whose new life in California more than justified the hardships endured along the way...there is clearly enough variety in this engaging book to satisfy a wide range of readers.—David H. Grover