"A truthful and valuable personal account of the hardships endured in crossing the plains in 1849, and of the trials, failures, and successes of the argonauts, especially in the smaller mining towns." –H.H. Bancroft

"Amusing and instructive...portrays with much vividness the trials and difficulties of various kinds which marked their course through this perilous journey." - Merchants' Magazine, 1854

Alonzo Delano was one of a company who left Dayton, Ohio, April 6th, 1849, and traveled the wild wastes between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.

In his 1854 book "Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings," Delano portrays with much vividness the trials and difficulties of various kinds which marked their course through this perilous journey. In his short sojourn with the Indians of California, he is able to give much that is interesting in regard to their mode of life, habits, etc. Also the hardships which the early emigrants, especially the miners, encountered, showing how a vast work was undertaken and completed by individual enterprise, in overcoming the natural barriers of the climate and the face of the country in gold digging. His own experience and that of others is written by him in the form of a diary, which gives a freshness to the incidents and adventures related.

Alonzo Delano (1806 - 1874), who went by the pen name "Old Block", was an American humorist, pioneer town city father, and a California Gold Rush Forty-niner. Delano's sketches of gold rush camp life rivaled Bret Harte and Mark Twain in popularity.

Alonzo Delano was born at Aurora, N.Y., in 1806, and came to California by the Lassen route in 1849, and of his journey published a minute account. After working in the placers for some time he went to S. F. and opened a produce store. In the autumn of 1851 he engaged in quartz-mining at Grass Valley, which was thenceforward his home. A year or two later he became superintendent of the Nevada Company's mill and mine, and then agent of Adams & Co.'s express and banking office. In Feb. 1855 he opened a banking-house of his own.

But it was as an author, not as a banker, that Delano was best known to the early Californians, and, by one of his books at least, to the wider world. "Life on the Plains" a volume of some 400 pages, is an account of his journey overland to Cal., and embodies much information about early times in Cal., especially in the mining regions and small towns. The portion relating to the journey was written as a journal, in which the incidents of each day, the kind of country passed through, and the probable distance accomplished were noted. What does not relate to the immigration is more sketchy, but still valuable and accurate.

Other works by Delano include:

• (1853) Pen-Knife Sketches. Or Chips of the Old Block. A Series of Original Letters, Written by One of California's Pioneer Miners, and Dedicated to That Class of Her Citizens by the Author.

• (1854) Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings

• (1857) A Live Woman in the Mines; or, Pike County Ahead. A Local Play in Two Acts

• (1856) Old Block's sketch-book; or, Tales of California life

• (2005) On the trail to the California gold rush

Delano's book is a well-regarded historical source for "Life on the Plains" and is cited in the following modern works:

• Spreading the Word: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush, by Richard Thomas Stillson - 2006

• Inland Island: The Sutter Buttes, by Walt Anderson - 2004

• Gold Rush Capitalists: Greed and Growth in Sacramento